Audrey's Legacy Challenge Blog

audrey_legacy @ 2009-01-24T20:06:00

2009-01-25T03:20:11Z

Well hello! I guess it's been.. a while. OK, more than a while. Almost a year. 2008? Not a good year. Let's hear it for 2009! I'm hoping things will get better this year and give me more time for Sims! I've played, off and on, but I'm really no further along than what you see in my last few updates.

Sims 3 comes out next month (unless the rumors of delay are true). I don't think I will immediately dump Sims 2 for Sims 3, as I did Sims 1 for Sims 2. I want to see how the new features in Sims 3 play out, and of course I'm hesitant to completely give up on the Legacy's and Everson's. I'd love to do new legacy families for Sims 3, but given that we apparently only get one neighborhood, I don't know quite how that will work out with the neighborhood aging. I've heard there's a way to turn it off, but can you turn it off for each family, or does it apply to the neighborhood as a whole? I guess we'll have to wait and see. The aging feature WOULD be nice for satellite homes/spare heirs in legacy families.. but I would still like some control.

I don't know if I'll do all out legacy-type posts for any Sims 3 legacy families I start. I WILL post, because I know not everyone is going to buy Sims 3 right away and I'd like to be able to share screenshots and help answer questions my fellow simmers have about the game. I'm not completely giving up on my Sims 2 families, either.. I'd like to eventually get blog posts caught up, and to have the Legacy's reach generation 20, and the Everson's generation 10. I'm nearly there with both families.. I just need to sit down and play for more than a few minutes.

So that's that! I'm alive! Looking forward to Sims 3 (though a bit wary about it at the same time). Hope y'all are doing well. c:

Anyone else going to get Sims 3? Any features you are curious about? Features you're not so sure about?

Everson: Another Chat With Dionysus

2008-02-27T01:29:13Z

WARNING: VERY IMAGE HEAVY UPDATE. LIKE, SERIOUSLY, GUYS. 100+ PICTURES (I THINK THE ACTUAL COUNT IS 114 OR SO).

YO! CHICKY LADY! HEY! OVER HERE!

Dionysus! Long time, no see!

You're telling me, boss! What the heck do you think you're doing, going off and ignoring me like this?! My social is running pretty low here, babe. I need to share the story of my family with the world, you know, and I kinda need your help to do it!

Sorry, Dionysus. Real life just got away from me for a while.

Real.. life? Are you saying my life isn't real to you?! Am I that easy to forget about?! I mean, I know you and I haven't always seen eye-to-eye because you think my romancing of the ladies is a bit out of line - I think you have a lot of Family sim in you, chicky lady, just sayin' - but to just forget about me completely, and then show up and say my life isn't REAL? That's totally below the belt. And on top of me having to remember all about that idiot grandson of mine who went and got himself bit by some crazed glowy-eyed mutt...

Dionysus.. I'm sorry. Honest, I am. I didn't mean to ignore you. And I think your life is perfectly real. I swear. Hey, speaking of Odin, why don't you finish catching me up on what your family has been up to, eh? I've been wondering what happened to everyone after Odin became a werewolf.

Well.. OK. But only if you promise not to ignore me again.

I promise.

And only if you promise to tell me you love me once in a while. A guy needs to hear these things sometimes, you know.

OK. I promise.

And only if you and a bunch of your hot chicky lady friends will---

DIONYSUS.

Will.. DONATE TO CHARITY ONCE IN A WHILE. That's what I was going to say, if you hadn't gone and interrupted me.

Sure, Dionysus. Why do I find that hard to believe?

If I had to guess, I'd say you hate charities. But moving on!

Hey!

Look, here's Odin. Being all.. gah. I can't even look at the pictures. That kid is a disgrace. Should've been ousted from the family.

Dionysus, how can you say such things? Odin was always such a sweetie.

*grunt*

And hey, at least he's wearing /clothes/ in his werewolf form. That's got to count for something.

If you say so, boss.

This is your great-granddaughter, right?

Yeah, that's our G7 heiress, Athena. Odin's daughter.

Cute girl. I question her sanity for wearing such a dress out in the snow, though.

And here's my son, Ra, and his wife, Shelby.

G5 heir and his wife. Nice. They're getting up there in age though, aren't they?

Indeed they are. In fact, they was only being all cuddly because Ra had a feeling that his time was a-comin'.

And he was right.

Oh, poor Ra. But he died in platinum at least, didn't he?

Sure did! 'Atta boy.

Hehehehehehehe.

Dionysus, what is going on here?

Hehehehehehehehe.

Dionysus?

Hehehehehehe.

The cats were fighting?

Hehehe.

Why do I have a feeling you were somehow behind this?

I pulled Sage's tail and she thought her old lady Misty had done it.

Oh, geez.

Hehe.. being invisible is fun.

Oh, looks like Shelby got a promotion!

Yep. And just in time, too.

Oooh. Poor Shelby.

Yeah, those cats wouldn't shut up about her.

Geez, one elder couple goes, and the adults age to take their place. At least Tristen and Odin make decent looking elders. What do you think, Dionysus?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! WOLF BOY IS /BALDING/!

Dionysus! That's mean!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Hehe. Sorry, chicky lady. That just makes me laugh every time. Here's my great granddaughter again. Athena. All grown up.

Refresh my memory, Dionysus. What's her aspiration?

Family. Pfft. Just like my mother. Wants to have 10 kids and all that.

This is her husband, Shane. Good guy. I gave him a nice welcome.

It looks like you scared him, more like.

Details, schmetails.

I guess Athena is going for that 10 kids want, then.

Why do women in this family want so many danged kids? Do you know how much trouble kids are?

Need I remind you, "Big D", tha you yourself had /20/ children?

Yeah, and you know how much I paid in child support? A lot!

Bastian, gettin' old. Like cats do.

I see a picture of Odin back there on the wall.

First opportunity I get, I'm spooking someone so they forget about their food in the oven. Burn the whole house down and get rid of that darn picture.

Geez, Dionysus. A little grumpy about the werewolf thing, aren't you? Give the poor guy a break.

Hey, you'd act the same way if it were your grandson endangering the rest of your family.

Can't argue with that logic, I guess.

Oooh! A new puppy!

Yeah, Athena wanted to adopt one. His name's Jade Emperor.

And a new addition. This must be the first G8 child! Details, Dionysus?

A little girl! Her name is Sekhmet.

Cute.

Jade Emperor, all grown up.

Pretty nice for an adoption pool dog. Ears are a bit crazy. But cute!

Hey chicky lady? Remember in my last update how I said that those four kittens born were foreshadowin'?

I DO remember that. And as I recall, you would not elaborate any further when I tried to ask you what you meant.

Yeah, well, get ready. It's about to become obvious.

I.. I just see cats, Dionysus. And dear Grimmy.

Yeah. Both Misty and Bastian the cats died at the same time. Sad really.

And across the house, Athena went into labor with her second kid at the same time.

Wow. Busy place then, I imagine.

You said it, boss. So, first everyone ran over to this side of the house to cry over the stupid cats... oh, yeah. And Tristen there? Her carpool was just arriving too.

And then they ran to THIS side of the house to cheer on Athena's screamin'.

So, Grimmy is dialin' up the Big Luau Boss to see about the cats, and Athena pops out her kid.

Aw, how sad. The poor kid's first memory must be of the cats dying! ..Wait. Did she just set the baby down - her newborn precious little baby - to go mourn the cats?

Not quite...

Dionysus. Is that.. are there THREE babies?!

No.

No?

There's four.

Four?! Quadruplets?!

Yep! Three girls and a boy. Nefertiti...

Ma'at...

Osiris, the only boy, and...

Waset.

Holy cow. Now I understand what you meant by foreshadowing.

See, I told you. Oh. And NOW Athena is going to mourn the cats.

Odin seems excited to have so many new grandbabies in the house.

Yeah, well. He's weird. We've already established this.

Wow. Four babies. I can't get over that.

AND a toddler! Don't forget little Sekhmet.

Sounds like it was quite a chore.

It was. They had to redo one of the bedrooms into a big nursery. Complete with its own fridges 'n stuff.

They were so busy none of us ghost-types had much heart to scare them. It was a real team effort takin' care of those kids.

I can imagine.

Sage the cat got a little ignored because of it, but she got good at making sure she took care of herself.

And no one forgot about Sekhmet.

Good thing.

Yeah, I hear them social workers are pretty nasty ladies.

Did they all take off work to take care of them?

Tristen did a bit. Shane was tryin' his hardest to become a world class chef, so he was usually gone. Lucky dog.

Looks like it was a chore even bringing them all to their birthday cakes!

It was. And those kids shared a birthday with their big sister Sekhmet, so there were five kids to carry to cakes that day!

Nefertiti.

Ma'at.

Osiris.

Waset.

They exchanged the cribs out for some really comfy little floor mats.

I imagine that made things a lot easier on the adults in the house.

Sekhmet was pretty excited now that the little ones were old enough for her to play with.

But I gotta say, Athena and Shane - with help from Tristen and Odin - did a real good job with all these kids. Athena taught Sekhmet how to study..

And helped the other kids learn to walk...

Talk...

And use the potty.

I noticed that Athena looked to be pregnant again.

Yeah. She waited 'til the kids were toddlers to get pregnant again. So she wouldn't have to deal with three toddlers and an infant, y'see.

Good idea.

GAH! STUPID. GLOWY-EYED. MUTTS!

Wow. Two of them? Looks like Jade Emperor isn't happy to have them around.

'Course! I ain't happy either! Stupid monsters!

That's it! CHASE THAT SCUM AWAY, JADE EMPEROR!

Wow, birthday time for the quads already?

Sure is! Cute kids, huh? Nefertiti, Waset, Osiris and Ma'at.

And their new little brother, Imhotep.

Odin, that stupid son of a---

DIONYSUS! Keep it clean, remember?

*huff* Sorry. Anyway. He became a Captain Hero. Just like our founder, my great grandmother Isis.

Hehehe. Osiris. I popped into that kid's shower and turned the water cold on him.

You're such a loving ancestor, Dionysus.

Imhotep, learning how to talk. Prolly wishin' they could talk about more sophisticated things than highchairs and bottles, if that look on his face is any indication.

Waset and Ma'at watchin' tv with Sage the cat.

'Til their mother goes into labor again. Booooring!

Feels that way with Family sims and all their births sometimes, Dionysus. It felt like that with your mother, too! Anyway, details on the kid?

Another boy. Apophis.

And Sekhmet became a teenager.

And look who one of the kids brought home from school!

Is that.. isn't that your daughter, Dionysus?

Yup! That's my darling little Tamberlyn. My daughter with Chris Cho.

She's growing up mighty cute.

Don't I know it!

FINALLY.

What?

The rest of the family kept wantin' Odin t'take some weird juice that'd make him not a weirdo freak anymore.

You mean take away his werewolf turning abilities?

Yeah. So he did.

Does this mean you consider him family again?

Maybe. Don't know if I can quite forgive him for his stupidity, but at least now he won't be hurtin' no one.

Tristan havin' dinner with the quads. She got home around the same time as them, and made it a point to try and eat wth them and catch up on their day. Good grandma.

Imhotep. Cute little punk.

Five of the kids. Waset, Ma'at and Osiris on the couch. Imhotep behind it. Nefertiti sitting back at the table.

Oh. And Apophis as a toddler.

Oh, no. Looks like Odin turned back into a non-werewolf just in the nick of time.

Yeah. Ol' Grimmy came lookin' for him.

And made him march straight off into the netherworld.

Poor guy. And with Imhotep right there! Poor kid must have hated witnessing his grandfather's death.

Amongst all the chaos of kids, Shane finally made it big on some cookin' show with iron cooks or something of the sort.

Good for him.

He better be good at cooking. You've seen all those kids he's got!

The quads! Wow. What nice teens they make.

Yeah, nice lookin' bunch. Waset, Nefertiti, Osiris and Ma'at.

And yet another little bundle of joy and stinky diapers.

What number is this now, Dionysus?

Eight. And it's another girl. Hathor.

And here's Apophis.

And then another apperence by Grimmy--

Wow. He's getting quite a workout this update.

No kidding. Here he's come to take Tristan. She left behind a nice platinum stone 'cause she maxed all her skills and somesuch.

Hathor with her dad.

Nice to see Shane actually doing some parenting!

Yeah. He was so busy trying to get promoted and all before that he didn't get too much of a chance to help the kids.

Imhotep and Apophis playing in the sprinkler. Wish I could've done that as a kid!

Sorry, Dionysus. That expansion pack was after your time.

More Grimmy! Coming to take yet ANOTHER cat.

Sage?

Right. And man, everyone turned into blubberin' babies when she left. Couldn't go two steps without sobbing. All for a stupid cat. No one cried this much for ME when I died!

But they made up for their loss by adopting a new kitten and a new puppy. Mysterio is the cat, and Radar is the dog.

Mysterio...

Wow. Gorgeous cat.

And Radar.

Still don't like the upright ears. But a nice looking dog.

Imhotep!

This is the look of a boy who has just said the wrong thing to his older sister.

See?

OK, Dionysus. These people are officially breeding too fast for me to keep up. This does not look like Hathor.

You're right! That's because this is kid number nine, Horus.

Here's Hathor for you, though. Getting scared by.. it looks like Misty.

And here, dancing with Imhotep.

What a nice big brother!

Yeah, they danced for hours on end. But! It's time for the birth of kid ten!

Dionysus?

Yes?

Twins?

Right on the money, chicky lady! That Athena is one fertile sister.

Apparently. First quads, now twins. Stats?

Two boys! The one with lighter skin is Ptah, darker skin is Aten.

Well, twins should be a piece of cake to these two, after having raised 9 other kids, quads included.

No doubt!

Freak lightning storm that burned down the mini forest off to the right of the house. No one really cared except the maid and whoever the heck that little girl is.

No one in the family bothered it?

Nope. Well.. except Jade Emperor and Radar. But they're just dogs.

They're cute.

I see that, Dionysus. And I'm not arguing.

Just sayin'. These little dudes are my favorites.

Actually, so is this guy. Kill that thing, Mysterio!

Where are Athena and Shane off to?

Vacation! To the woods or something. They never got a honeymoon and after having eleven kids...

Yeah, they deserve a break.

They had a blast. Not too many pictures of 'em, though. I keep hearing something about a bear eating most of the film and then a fire after the flood or...

So no pictures?

No pictures.

Darn.

Once they're back home, it's old fart-hood for them!

That's no excuse for skipping out on parenting duties, though. Which I see they're not.

Nah. Those two are dedicated.

They celebrated their golden anniversary, in fact. Athena really wanted to. So all their kids off at college came on over. From front to back.. Nefertiti, Ma'at, Osiris, Cronus (Athena's brother), Sekhmet and Waset.

Of course, Imhotep and Apophis were there too. They provided entertainment.

At least until the two of them shipped off to college. Most everyone was there to see 'em off, though.

Oh, yeah. And here's some older shots of the twins. Aten.

And Ptah. Ha, I love this kid. He reminds me of me!

Great. Juuuust what this world needs. Another Dionysus.

Damn straight! Wait, were you being sarcastic?

Me? Oh, no! Not me! Never!

Hathor. Pretty little thing.

And the twins playing together on that dang swing.

Horus, before he went off to college. He was almost the heir, you know.

I thought the heir was the firstborn? Who would be Sekhmet in this case.

Well, Athena and Shane decided to shake it up a bit. So, not Sekhmet.

OK. If it's not Sekhmet and it's not Horus....?

Waset! The youngest of the quadruplets. She's pretty cool. Into Popularity and all that.

And this is her husband, Komei. He likes money. Lots and lots of money.

Twins again. Older. Right before they headed off to college too.

Have I told you before that I love Ptah? This kid is a hoot.

He does remind me quite a bit of you.

Maybe I should go visit him in college. Make sure he gets settled into the Boom Boom Room...

I really don't think that will be necessary. And I don't think his mother would approve. So you just stay put.

Shane decided he wanted to write a book. About raising kids.

Well, since he has eleven kids, I'd say he's qualified.

And Komei has a very in-depth discussion on aging with Athena.

Oh! And here's that cat again.

Dionysus, where's Waset? She's our heiress, after all.

Out busy with her job and being pregnant. Oh! In fact...

Tada! Welcome the 9th generation of the Everson family! This is Waset and Komei's daughter, Demeter.

Wow, G9! I can't believe it. Seems like just yesterday you were being born, Dionysus.

I know. Time flies, eh?

Don't I know it.

Kids grow up right before your eyes.

So it seems! Is that Demeter?

Yep. Perfect little angel, isn't she? She has a little brother, too. Pan. But I can't remember where I set my picture of him... let's see here...

Well, that's good enough for now, Dionysus. I mean, we've gone through one entire generation in this update alone. Need to save something for the next one!

No, no, I KNOW I have a picture of the little guy around here somewhere. Lemme see now.. *grumblemutter* ..I was just looking at it yesterday...

Er. Well, we'll let Dionysus poke around for pictures. In the meantime, to you readers.. hope you enjoyed this update on the Everson's! Sorry is was SO picture heavy. I meant to update After the quads grew up a bit (children or teens), but then I just never found the time, but I kept playing. But now you guys are as caught up as you possibly can be. That last shot of Demeter is the last picture I took when I last played the game, so nothing has happened beyond that moment.

We're almost to G10 of the Everson's! I cannot believe it. It honestly does feel like just yesterday I was playing the earlier generations. And this family has been SO different from my other big family, the Legacy's. G10. I can hardly wait!

Just some gameplay notes:
- Yes, quadruplets. Yes, I have the twin/triplet/quad hack. No, these quads were not a result of that hack. They happened because her birth got stuck in a loop. I'm guessing because so much was going on at the time with the arrival/departure of sims.. ONE baby was supposed to be born, and two cats were supposed to be dying, and somehow.. quads. I was shocked.

- Caring for the quads was easier than I thought it would be. I got three of the babies all on the same schedule, with one just a bit behind them. And then when they were toddlers, I got those floor blankets - LIFE SAVERS - and kept them all on a similar schedule and it was SO much easier to handle things.

- I'll apologize for both the number of pictures in this update and the LACK of pictures. There are so many because I've waited so long to update, but in going through to try to piece together an update, I'm missing SO MUCH just because I don't have pictures. Things like.. pictures of a lot of Athena's kids just hanging out together and playing (instead of just aging shots).. or most of Demeter's toddler/early childhood, etc. But sometimes - especially during the Have 10 Kid wants - it becoems a chore to make sure you're taking pictures.

'Til next time! Later guys!

McNeil: You mean we're not past G2 yet?!

2008-02-25T20:04:13Z

As you may or may not remember, Harris McNeil (Family) was our founder. He and his dog, Perdita, settled into a lot and struggled through their first week or two of existence. Harris met, fell in love with and married Jan Tellerman (Romance) and the two got down to the whole legacy business of producing an heir (which, given that I'm following the Patriarchy handicap, means they need a male heir).

Harris and Jan had three sons: Charlie, Evan and Mitchell. Sadly, after an unfortunate incident of Evan freezing while out playing in the snow, all three boys were taken away by the social worker. But Jan had been pregnant at the time, and gave birth to their first daughter, Shelly, soon after. They had another boy named Malcom, then another girl named Penny and finally one last boy, Luke. Bringing their total number of kids to 7 (only four of which remained with them).

By this point, both Harris and Jan were elders. But Harris, being a Family sim, still wanted kids.. and he was so close to 10! But Jan couldn't have any more kids, and since they had lost the three boys to the social worker, they couldn't adopt either. And so, we now pick up sometime after we last left the McNeil's...

(And please excuse my spotty picture taking; these pictures have been taken off and on over the course of the last.. holy crud, 10.. 11 months? yeesh.. and I forgot to take pictures a lot. Ahem. So, this might just be a mostly text-based entry)

We'll start off with a teenaged Shelly (Knowledge). This was over at the lot of the Pleasant twins. For some reason, Shelly was stealing their paper.

Back on the McNeil lot, a teenage Malcolm (Romance) and an adorably cute curly-haired Luke build a snowman together. At the moment, Pleasantview is set to neverending winter in my game, because I was annoyed none of my sim kids ever got a snow day off from school. So there is constant white around the McNeil house.

Inside, Luke pets a penguin.. while Penny (Romance) looks up from her book in shock.

Shelly congratulates her dad on all the woohoo he's had. Harris is disgusted she'd even bring it up!

I have NO IDEA what that billow of steam coming from Harris is. It happened only to him.. and only that morning. It was odd. As a sidenote, this was after I had to bulldoze the McNeil's lot. The two former McNeil dogs - Perdita and Butch - were haunting, and they were very mean doggy ghosts, so I tried to send them to the cemetary I have set up.. and somehow Butch's ghost got stuck in the front bathroom. No one could use the shower in there, and if they went in there, they'd glitch all up until I could get them out. So! Bulldozed the lot and rebuilt.. which wiped out most of the McNeil's funds up to that point.

Luke, crying over the death of Ai, the daughter of Perdita and Butch.

Most of the kids have ended up with high Neat scores, but very low Nice scores. So there's a lot of mean-spiritedness that goes on, including Shelly punching her siblings a little too hard during a nice game of Punch You-Punch Me. Penny considers walloping her older sister back. In the face.

Shelly's cat, Dolphin, killing the catnip mouse dead!

Just a shot of the four non-Socia Worker-claimed kids of Harris and Jan. From left to right.. Shelly, Luke, Penny and Malcolm. And I think it's fairly obvious here that Shelly and Malcolm have the lowest Nice score of all four kids (they're personality clones, since I forgot to roll the pacifier between their births.. oops!). And yes, there is a kid in the background there. That's Dash.

Here's Jan, crying over the fact that Harris cheated on her with Ivy Copur there. Since Harris was so close to his 10 Kids want, I decided to bring Ivy into the house to pop out 3 more kids for him! Of course, I'd forgotten I was using the Strict Family Values handicap, which means woohoo only with the spouse. Oops. Blew that handicap! Oh well, drama is more fun! So! Ivy moved in, got pregnant (which made Jan furious at the both of them) and had a boy, Dash. Later on, Jan and Harris would make up and woohoo.. which ticked Ivy off! And the kids were all furious at different variations of one of the women and their father. So, I had a house full of mean, furious sims. I enjoyed it.

Harris says, "Woman, I apologized and apologized. Would you stop crying?!" I have to agree with him, especially since Jan is a Romance sim and constantly has wants to kiss/make out/woohoo with more than one sim. Those Romance sims are such hypocrites!

Harris, watching it snow. I thought I had a hack that made them STOP DOING THIS ALL THE FREAKING TIME.. but either I don't, or it's not working. Because they do this ALL THE FREAKING TIME.

Little hottie, Luke (Fortune/Become The Law), moves the TV back into place after the repairman fixed it. Luke is officially the heir, as he is both incredibly adorable and has a decent personality. I could do without the Fortune aspiration since the family is still so poor, but oh well! Hopefully getting a job in the Law field will help with that!

Harris and Ivy's second son, Saban. He's furious at both his parents for cheating on Jan, as he has the highest relationship with Jan. And Jan absolutely dotes on little Saban.

Harris and Jan in the process of making up. Jan accepted a make out from Harris, but then got annoyed when he tried to goose her. Their relationship later went even further down the drain when Jan got home from work RIGHT as Ivy and Harris started to Try for Baby for their third kid and now she's furious at them both again.

Ol' Morty Goth comes to pick on Luke for spying on him with the telescope. Poor Luke! Go away, Morty!

The house was feeling incredibly crowded, so Malcolm and Penny both got sent off to college. Shelly got to stay, as she was close to adulthood, so.. here she is! An adult! She quickly moved out, taking Dolphin the cat with her.

Dash plays with the new family dog, Laika.

And this is Sunflash, the new kitten.

Luke, stargazing. I love him. <3

Shelly got engaged to Russ Bear (the burglar, who she'd been furious with since she was a toddler because he came and stole their TV), because Harris had a want to see a relative get engaged, and I wanted him in Platinum before he died.

I was very nervous that Harris would die before his 10th child was born. His life meter was SO FULL.. but he managed to hang in there! So here he is, looking rather bored at the birth of this 10th child, a little boy named Duke. Who.. I got no picture of. Whoops.

That Have 10 Kids Want - as well as Shelly and Russ getting married - put Harris into Platinum until he got home from work the next day and ol' Grimmy showed up. This picture looks like he's staring just a little too hard at that hula girl.

And he leaves a nice platinum stone behind! Harris McNeil, founder of the McNeil family, passed away at.. 83, I believe it was.

Ivy, his mistress, mourns from her secluded room. She had come home from work earlier in the day with a cold, and because of one of the handicaps I'm using, she had to be put in quaratine. Poor girl. She was well by the next day, though.

Life goes on for the McNeil's! Here's Jan teaching Duke (now a toddler) to walk.

Dash, as a teenager! I believe he rolled Romance. And then he went off to college.

Now it's Jan's turn to go to the great luau in the sky. Except.. being in low green aspiration.. she really doesn't want to go. Sorry, Jan! And I thought it was touching that Ivy, Harris' mistress, sobs so heavily over the death of his wife! They weren't fabulous friends, by any means.. but it was pretty touching, I think.

Sunflash the cat all grown up. Who turned out looking nothing like I'd imagined (I was expecting a lighter coat).

Saban, now a teenager! He might have rolled Romance too, I think. Or Popularity. I forget. Off to college with you, boy!

And the youngest, Duke, as a child. Yes, it honestly took me forever to realize that I have both a Luke and a Duke in the same house. Doh.

Luke, our adorable curly-haired heir, is now an adult! YAY! Time to get his woman of (my) choice moved in and get that 3rd generation FINALLY started!

So in moves Dagmar the mailwoman.. who I'd forgotten was Romance. GAH! I'm tired of Romance sims! Oh, well. She's now got a bun in the oven, and it won't be long before G3 is here! I can't wait, especially since G2 took forever!

And that's about where the McNeil's are by now. I set the seasons back to a regular schedule of Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter because neverending winter did wind up getting rather dull. And I hate to jinx myself, but I'm hoping I'll be able to get out more regular updates. Getting the pictures together and writing the entries aren't what hang me up, it's uploading the pictures. I use Photobucket, and I've tried uploading the pictures one-by-one, I've tried their bulk uploader, I've tried Flock.. everything concerning uploading and getting the pictures into an entry just seems to take FOREVER, and that's what hangs me up (when RL doesn't do it). Hopefully I can work out something that makes the process easier on me so that I don't have so many unposted updates sitting in my folder. Because unposted updates are no fun for you OR for me!

Anyway! Free Time is out this week, and I plan on picking up a copy on Friday, so at the very least expect some Free Time picture spam. :D So very excited for this EP. New stuff for toddlers = win.

OOC: Who are you, again?

2008-02-19T02:37:47Z

Hi, guys!

Wow, it's been a while since I updated. I apologize for that. I went through another period of not having any interest in the Sims, and then I DID start to play again, but trying to find the desire to sit and write an update, and load all the pictures and put it all together has been hard.

BUT! Hopefully you'll be pleased to hear that I am close to posting an actual, real, honest-to-goodness update! I have one for the McNeil's all written out, I just need to grab the pictures and upload them and throw the update together. Hopefully that won't take me more than a day or two to get around to.

I've also been playing the Legacy's, though not the main family. I got to thinking how interesting it would be to do a What If.. sort of thing. So, I took one of the potential Legacy G5 heirs (Orion was chosen as the original heir, although he had a twin brother, Hunter).. Hunter, and am going to play this branch of the family up through G10. It will be a What If.. Hunter had been chosen as the heir instead of his twin? sort of thing. Just to see how different the family ends up being. I'm having a lot of fun with it thus far, and hope to post about that, too.

I don't recall if I have a main Legacy update, or an update on the Everson's. If not, I'll try to play those families to get updates out on them.

Again, sorry for the downtime. Hopefully my interest will stick around for at least a little bit, what with the new EP coming out soon and all.

Cheers!
-- Audrey

A Pretend Update That Isn't Really An Update

2007-09-19T20:29:55Z

Hey, guys! I know, I've not really kept up on the updates, eh? Sorry 'bout that. I blame Real Life, and the fact that my interest in Sims goes back and forth. It wasn't very helpful that I wasn't interested in Bon Voyage, like, at all (I DID pick it up finally, and I do enjoy it more than I thought I would.. but it's still not exactly my cup of tea; I hate sending my sims away from their home lots. Luckily, the next EP sounds so much more interesting!). I have been playing a bit recently, now I'm just trying to work up the brain power to write an update.

In the meantime, here's a shot of the new layout of the Everson house. I don't think I ever showed the layout of their old house, but.. it sucked. Royally. I can't build houses for beans, even if I follow a floorplan. I always make them too big! And legacy houses are horrible; I always try to keep something of the original, G1 house in the layout of the rebuilt house. In the old Everson house, that meant saving the first bedroom, and keeping the living room/kitchen. Which, after several generations, just wasn't working out. The house was too big and too funkily shaped. So. I moved everyone out and rebuilt and this is the result.

Honestly, I am very much in love with it. It is by far one of my better layouts, even if it was (like all the others) kinda just mish-mashed together. I didn't try to incorporate any of the old rooms into the new layout, just started from scratch. The kitchen is still pretty much in the same place, but I built it instead of trying to save old walls and everything, so it's easier to deal with. I also flattened the lot. Originally, back in G1, the lot took about three or four squares in before it plummeted sharply, thanks to me putting the lot kinda on a hill. So, I had some of it leveled.. but the front of the lot right off the sidewalk sloped up a square. Sims were always complaining about something being in their way whenever they tried to interact out front or set down homework because of that awkward slope. So, the whole lot got flattened completely, which is SO NICE!

As for the house itself, I play with the camera in the backyard looking out to the street.. instead of from the street looking back. From that position I have everything set so that nothing is in my view of anything else so I don't have to do too much fiddling with the camera during gameplay just to be able to click things. And unlike the old house, most of this fits onto my screen all at once, so even scrolling around the lot itself is limited.

I decided on only one nursery in this house, instead of the girls nursery/boys nursery of the old one. And I went with a girls bedroom/boys bedroom concept instead. Only two master bedrooms for the heir/their parents; the old house had a third such bedroom, but I decided that I was safe with only two this time around. Three nice big bathrooms. A study, where the blasted piano is kept so that if people are trying to nap on the sofa, NPC guests aren't waking them up with the horrible noise. All the painting stuff is in there too, as well as the original chess table and chairs from G1. The living room is nice and big and spacious for when kids are doing homework or if I need to bring in a reward object for someone to skill on.. but it's not as big and awkward as the old one. I also moved the driveway closer to the house. The swing and such is off to the other side of the house. Around back is the building where the heir portraits are kept. I was keeping all the gravestones/urns back there too, but the ghosts were starting to be a problem.. both to the Eversons and to the slowing down of my computer. So they all went off to a public cemetary, except for the founder, Isis, and Dionysus, because the lot would be dull without him.

Anyway. So there we go. New Everson house that won't drive me crazy! Although I DO need to remember to fence off the dang cowplant before another accident happens.

Later, all! And hopefully I'll get an update up and out.. uh.. you know. Some time before hell freezes over. n_n;

Everson: A Chat With Dionysus

2007-07-12T02:47:45Z

Keeping busy, I see, Dionysus.

Hey, chicky lady! Of course. Someone's gotta keep this family on their toes, you know.

And who better than their dead relative, right? So, how've things been going?

Well, maybe if you stopped by once in a while...

I'm sorry, Dionysus..

Big D.

I'm sorry, Big D. Life has kept me pretty busy. I'll try harder next time. Why don't you catch me up on what's been going on?

Sure thing, boss! Let's, see...

This was on of the Everson's cats, was it not?

Yeah. This is the male, Bastian. Cats are actually pretty funny to watch.

The glazed expression is pretty amusing.

Exactly!

Ah! That's your grandson, Odin, right Dionysus?

Yeah, that's him. 6th generation of the Everson family! Just lookit that nose...

And the little boy?

That's Odin's youngest, Cronus. Looks a fair bit like his great grandpa, wouldn't you agree?

He does look a fair bit like you when you were a youngster, Dionysus. Didn't Odin and his wife.. uh..

Tristen.

Yes, Tristen. Didn't they have another child?

Yeah. This is their oldest, Athena.

She's growing up fast.

Don't they all? Smart little cookie she is, too. I'm kind of worried about her, though.

Oh?

Yeah, she really likes kids. She adores Cronus. I keep overhearing her telling her parents that she wants to have eleventy five kids when she grows up. That's kind of scary.

Says the man who himself fathered /20/ children.

MOVING ON!

Here's my son, Ra, playing with the darn cat.

Wow. Hard to believe Ra's an elder.

As is his wife, Shelby. Poor girl. She loves her money, y'know? Came home one day after getting demoted at work.

Yikes.

Yeah. She'd been at the tip top of her business career too. It hit her pretty hard.

I can imagine.

Hehe. I always love watching the kids come home from their first day of school. They always seem so disapointed in their grades! Someday they'll learn that there are far more important things in life.

Such as?

Trying to get that hot chick two desks over to agree to meet you behind the gym after class for a little.. ah.. extracurricular activities.

*snort* Figures.

Looks like little Cronus is doing a lot of pondering about that potty.

Haha! Yeah. Cute little kid. I really like him. It's really too bad I'm dead, or I'd take him out on the town with me. Ladies dig a man who's good with munchkins like him, you know.

Oooh. Looks like Vidcund strikes again.

I really hate that guy! Tristen's just tryin' to stuff her brain full of knowledge and smarts and stuff, and all he can do is come over and poke and shove her. I hope he gets hit by a bus!

Dionysus!

What? I do!

Cute kids!

Ain't they just? I /am/ their great grandfather, you know.

And what's this?

Not the slightest clue. It was like some creepy follow-the-leader game. I tried to join, but that Count Jason...

He was married to the G2 heiress, Artemis, right?

Yeah. He's pretty nasty. And he wouldn't let me join in. I'd hope he would get hit by a bus too, but I guess it's too late for that.

Quite. (Audrey's Note: Yeah, that was weird! Bastian was following Count Jason ALL OVER THE DANG LOT with the action to 'Watch' him. And then Cronus was following after Bastian wanting to play with him or something. But since Count Jason never stopped, the other two never stopped either. I had to go in and cancel their actions myself to get them to stop, since both their needs were plummeting)

This is a good one!

That's Ra's wife Shelby again, it looks like. And the bovine spirit...

Yeah, that would be my Emmy. That one cow mascot chick from college I hooked up with, remember? We never got married, but she is Ra's mother. I guess she really missed her cow suit, since she likes to haunt around the lot in it.

Yikes! Looks like you guys have had one heck of a storm.

Yeah. Look.. it even brought up my old chicky, Prof. Laura, to spook around in the middle of the day!

Let's see.. Laura was the one eaten by the cow plant, right?

Fluffy, yeah. She's pretty pissed off about it, too. She had two kids and was just over here visiting when Fluffy made a meal of her.

Whoa! I guess the ghosts don't like to have their graves zapped, eh?

Not really. I'm glad mine is inside, nice and safe.

If there's one good thing about the rain storms, though, it was the puddles. Athena spent all her time out there splashin' around and makin' a mess. It was great!

So, we haven't seen too much of Tristen. What's she been up to?

Oh, you know. She's one of them sims who is all about the book learnin' and stuff. Always standing around trying to learn something, often with that wacky hat stuck on her head.

This is a cute picture, Dionysus.

Yeah. That's Athena and Cronus sitting there on the floor playing. And that there spook is.. er.. was?.. Isis' husband, Cooper.

Ah. The founder's husband and the G7 kids. Cooper sure does look happy to see them enjoying themselves. And.. hey, Dionysus? Is that a womrat cage I see?

Oh, yeah. That little rat. They call it Figs.

It?

Yes. It. Creepy little thing. I don't know why they keep it around. All it does is sit there. Bah.

Not fond of the rodents, I see.

They're not meant to be pets! Not like, y'know, cats and stuff.

Speaking of which.. Misty the cat seems to be a bit.. glowy.

Stupid cat went and got herself pregnant. Guess how many little rascals she spit out?

I don't know, Dionysus. How many kittens did she have?

Well this here one is Alice...

And Sage...

This was the only little boy one, Vader...

And finally little Dinah.

Wow. Four kittens. They must have had their hands full for a while! Talk about a full house.

Talk about foreshadowing.

What was that, Dionysus?

Nothing, nothing. Look, here's Odin with one of them kittens!

Sage, I think. Don't quote me on that, though, 'cause they all look the same.

Cute. What did you mean by foreshadowing?

Look, they're like little robots. Covered in fur.

Uh-huh, yeah, I see that. Dionysus, what did you...

Forget I said anything, woman. You'll see eventually. Look!

Tristen's practicing her speech for the Yummy Tummy Womrat Chow people. She has this great idea for a commercial for 'em that she thinks would bring in a lot of money.

I think she'd be good at that.

See, this is why I never had cats. Because they clog up the bathroom. No one could get in to use the toilet!

Well, bathrooms are where sims tend to like to converge. I guess the same goes for their cats as well.

Hey, who's Athena talking to?

That's Shane the mailman. Athena wants to marry him when she grows up. Forward little bugger that she is, she went off telling him how much she wanted to kiss him!

*chuckle* Cute kid.

Yeah. But that Shane is a good guy. He told her they had to be best friends first.

... And then they could make out. Wait. What? He said WHAT to my great great granddaughter-who-is-still-underage?! Why I outta....

Easy there, Dionysus. Aheh. Maybe he was just joking.

*grumble* He better hope he was, or I'm gunna...

Oh, look! Athena is a teenager! What a gorgeous young woman she's becoming.

'Course. She gets it from me, you know. Good genes and all that. 'Cept she's got it in her head to have a hundred kids or something, crazy girl.

And just what is this?

THAT is a cat rolling around in ecstasy after having destroyed the bed in the second master bedroom! Lousy cat!

That's Bastian, isn't it? Wow. I'm guessing some of your fellow Everson ghosts were none too happy at having their bed destroyed.

Nope. Dear ol' great grandma Isis spent a lot of her evening popping out of paintings and scaring everyone. Especially Athena.

But Tristen is happy 'cause she finally gets to toss that stupid hat. She feels like she's learned all there is to learn 'n whatnot.

Looks like those kittens grew up well.

Yeah. Turned out to be pretty cute lookin' things too. The family had a hard time tryin' to decide which one to keep. Alice...

Dinah...

Vader...

Or Sage.

In the end, they decided on Sage, 'cause Tristen really liked her.

These kids are pretty diligent about their schoolin'. Cronus actually enjoys school, which I gotta give the little runt credit for. I hated it. He likes it all, even the homework!

It looks like he grows up to be quite the handsome devil, too.

Of course! You're forgettin' who he's related to, here!

He does look a bit like you, Dionysus.

Yeah. And he's got my natural charm too. Wants to woo all the ladies in Strangetown, just like his dear ol' great grandpa Big D!

Oh, dear.

Shush up, woman. Anyway, they're quite the pair. They took this picture right before Cronus headed off to college. Athena never went. But she doesn't have the desire to kiss lotsa people like her brother does. She just wants all those babies.

Looks like someone is bringing in the dough.

Shelby finally got that $100,000 she's been wanting to earn. Not like the family needs it, but whatever.

Hey, Dionysus. What's Odin up to?

*muttergrumble* That stupid kid! He's such an idiot. Messing around with dumb glowy-eyed mutts. Those things are just bad news. But can he see that? Noooooo.

What do you mean?

Gah. Just.. watch.

Creepy eyes aside, I'd say the thing seems just like any other dog, Dionysus. Although.. I suppose Odin should have realized that you can't just pet a strange dog and expect to not get bitten like that. That had to hurt. I hope he had some...

Um. Dionysus? What's going on?

Oh! My word! Is that.. is that /Odin/?!

No. That /was/ Odin. That /was/ my grandson. Now it's just.. a monster. A stupid, untrustworthy monster.

Dionysus, that's a bit harsh, don't you think?

No! Just look at him. Howlin' and carryin' on like that. No civilized /person/ does that sort of thing! It's a monster and they should have it killed or put down or stuffed or something.

Wow, Dionysus. You really mean that, don't you? Odin's family to you! You shouldn't say things like that!

I'm not related to filthy animals.

OK, OK. Uh, let's move along, shall we?

Nah. I need a break. Just thinking about that last part gets me all uppity. I need to get a drink and chill with them hula chicks a while. I'll catch you later, boss.

Dionysus, wait! We still have more to...!

Ah. Well, it looks like Dionysus has left the building, ladies and gents. Sorry about the ending there. I didn't think Dionysus would react like that. There isn't much that upsets him usually. I guess we'll have to wait until he cools down a bit before we move on. Geez. That boy, I swear.

Anyway! Hope to catch you all again soon! I promise to try and get the next update up soon!

Legacy: G14 to G16 in 60 Seconds Flat!

2007-06-16T20:55:34Z

Well, maybe not THAT fast. It's been a while since I last updated the Legacy's. And they've come quite a ways since our last update. So I present to you here a crash course of an update. Because I didn't want to try and do an update with the 160 (!!!) pictures that I'd collected since the last update. 52 is a much more reasonable number, wouldn't you agree? So, off we go!

You'll remember that in our last update, G14 heiress, Kaili, married Bug Man Sinjin and they got to work on having G15. Kaili is a family sim and wanted to marry off 6 kids anyway.. so we were off on a Have 10 Kids want. Of the kids thus far, we have Sinley (girl), Henry (boy), Jessa (girl), Becca (girl) and John Travis (boy). And we're looking for a male heir for G15, so both Henry and John Travis are in the running. Kaili is pregnant with kiddo #6.

Here is a shot of the whole entire family. Henry and Sinley are painting, Jessa and Becca are playing chess. Sinjin is showering. Family dog Sulhaya is chewing on a bone. John Travis is playing with a toddler toy. Kaili is eating with Linda (Kaili's mom) and baby #6 is hanging out in mom's tummy. This design of the house doesn't exist anymore, btw. But more on that later.

Linda passes away (and in platinum!). Hooray!

Here's a nice picture of the G15 kids thus far. Ignore John Travis' glowing-ness.

Aww. Here's dad Sinjin with baby #6, a little girl named LilyAnna!

And this picture just amused me for some reason. It's been a while since I took this picture, so I'm sure I had something witty to say about it at the time, but it eludes me at the moment.

Sinjin reaches the top of the Science career! Woo! Permaplat!

John Travis as a tyke.

Yeah. Kaili had to take some elixer to put off elderhood so she could have 10 kids. And for some reason, something got stuck and she was left with a blue glow.

She had this blue glow for quite a long time.

This is.. Jessa, I think.. as a teen. Doesn't she look spunky?

Henry kissing a girl. And not just any girl. He's kissing Brielle. Brielle was one of the G11 kids (she's Cashlyn's younger sister). Which makes her Henry's.. great great aunt? Great great grandaunt? Something like that.

More previous Legacy family member fun! This is Lance, who was one of the 11 G9 kids! I have no clue why he's going all bonkers right here. He and his twin brother, Nash, were born just hours before the G10 heiress, Genesis, was born, so maybe having the limelight of his birth stolen by the arival of G10 is just now starting to show itself? Or having been one of 11 kids and never getting noticed by anyone? You never know. ... Someone get that guy some therapy, please.

Sulhaya is an elder doggy, now. And look at Kaili, still all glowy!

Sulhaya wonders why kid #7, Cole, is such a cranky pants and won't someone please come get him out of the chair so she can have some peace and quiet?

Kaili is pretty easy to spot in the dark. She glows through the bedsheets! The glowing finally went away when I had her take another sip of elixer.

John Travis, that looks painful. Little JT is scared by the ghost of the family's first dog, Murphy, while sisters LilyAnna (left) and Becca look on. In the background you can see a flat-tummied Kaili in her underwear. That means she must've just finished woohoo with Sinjin to start in on the next kid.

With Sulhaya getting old, the family got a new dog. Meet Micah! He and Cole give a little performance for the family. They're so musically inclined!

This is baby #8, Maya, cuddling with Micah. Awww.

And here is Micah getting sprayed by the skunk in front of the (stopped) bus. But doesn't it look like the poor dog is getting /hit by the bus/? Goodness gracious.

Right. The Legacy's (more specifically, Cole) had a pet bird for a while (whose name I do not recall). That didn't last too long. I got tired of having to refill the food dish all the time (or the bird flying around).

Before the remodel of the house, the kids go a swingset. I forgot to put it back in after the rebuild of the house. Oops!

But with the rebuild of the house.. they got a pool! Something the Legacy's have been lacking for some time now, I think. I don't recall the last time they had one (G12, I think? When Dallas drowned?). I don't have a picture of the new house layout, but no worries. As soon as I have a chance, I'm rebuilding it again because I suck at building and now the house is WAY TOO BIG. I rebuilt to begin with because I was tired of the foundation (having to carry puppies up and down the stairs to go potty outside was annoying). And then during the rebuild, there were some foundation tiles that I could NOT get rid of, so I ended up having to bulldoze the entire lot and then rebuild. Which means all the ghosts lost their connections to their beds and they were all sorts of ticked off. I eventually had to move them to a community cemetery (as seen in my last update) to get my sims some peace and quiet.

This is.. baby #9, which make this little Ace.

Sinley went off to college about the time I got Seasons, so she got to enjoy the permanent fall weather there and play in the leaves (in the rain!) to her hearts content.

She also got to play with the dorm guinea pig, another pet I won't allow in the main house because of the constant dish refilling.

We skip ahead a bit to John Travis at college, flirting away with blond cutie Trista Shaw. Remember that name. Trista Shaw. Got it in your head? Good. More on that later.

John Travis (whose looks remind me so much of Nery, the delivery man that G4 heiress, Radiance, married and who is one of my favorite ever sims that I decided that John Travis would be the G15 heir) proposes to girlfriend Trista. Still remembering that name? Good.

Penguins like college too.

John Travis Legacy, campus streaker. I totally love the look on that kid's face.

Back at home, the Legacy's have gotten a pretty female cat! Meet Sushi! Who was named after a cat that some neighbor friends of ours had back when I was a kid.

Maya, LilyAnna, Micah and Cole.

Sushi and Micah get along great. I like having two pets in the house. They can play with each other to keep their social up when the sims are all busy.

Poor Maya gets scared by.. either G3 heiress Tina (whose gravestone I have lost somewhere) or G10 heiress Genesis. I can't tell which. I'm leaning towards Genesis.

And Kaili - who by this point has had kids #9 and #10 (both boys, Ace and Austin.. and no, not twins) - watches TV while Legacy founder Laurie floats by in the backgrounds. I hadn't moved the gravestones away yet.

Cole is your typical phone-hogging teenage boy. And I think that is Kid #10, Austin, there in the background. I don't think I have any pictures of Ace. Oops.

Yeah, this has to be Austin. Cutie pie, ain't he?

Sushi kills that scratching post dead!

Wait, I DO have a picture of Ace! HI ACE!

And Kaili finally becomes an elder. Although the yellow shirt looks absolutely horrid. She keeps it, though, becuase I was too lazy to make her change. And I am lacking in decent elder clothes.

Maya as a gorgeous teen.. while Kaili appears in the background, emptying out one of the training potties.

John Travis (HE LOOKS LIKE NERY, <333) talks with his dad, Sinjin. And yes, I am a big Green Bay Packers fan. <3

Remember John Travis' fiance? Meet Trista Shaw-Legacy! And now, meet...

Trista Shaw-Legacy! What? Different woman, you ask? THIS Trista Shaw married into the family waaaay back in G2 (she married the G2 heir, Lucas). She was killed by a satellite. And now we have a NEW Trista Shaw married into the family with G15. I was amused. Also, excuse the poor quality of this picture. I was new to Sims 2 still back then, y'see.

Yeah. And some old man came along and dug in the garbage.

And ate it. EW! Go away, old man!

Trista (the new one) goes into labor with the first G16 kid! And.. Sinjin, that looks like it hurts, man. The baby is a girl. Stephanie. Who I don't have a any baby or toddler pictures of. Oops.

John Travis and Trista both got scared within a second of each other. SEE? I told you those ghosts were nasty! And.. coincidence, the ghost scaring Trista is Nery, the one I think John Travis looks like. I'll have to dig up pictures to see just how alike they look.

I have no idea. Kaili's hair just went funky all of a sudden. I thought I had an angle where it looked like that spike was piercing Sinjin's chest, but I guess not.

I didn't know ghosts could interact! Here's Linda playing fetch with Sulhaya. Ghostly fetch.

Sinjin and his second granddaughter. That's right, Trista and John Travis had a second (and final) little girl. This is Heather.

Here is big sister Stephanie, who has 30-some odd personality points compared to Heather's 25, so Stephanie is the heiress!

But Heather is adorable. The two look a lot alike, and a lot like their mother with blond hair and brown eyes.

And there we are. All caught up. Hopefully I won't get too far ahead next time, so my updates won't feel all OMG BEHIND HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED REALLY FAST again. XD I'm also trying to work on playing the McNeil's so I can get an update out on them. And on the Everson's, although I've hit a /really/ dull generation with them and going into their lot to play feels more like torture than anything else. I've had those sorts of periods with the Legacy's at times too (G6, G7, G12) so it's nothing new, just kind of sucky when I know I should be updating them.

Catch y'all later! <3

Legacy Acres Cemetery

2007-06-08T06:59:39Z

Well that didn't take me long. Some pictures, as promised. Nothing interesting, just showing off the simple little cemetery I built for the Legacy's use.

An overhead view of the cemetery. Welcome to Legacy Acres! Lay your relatives to rest here so that /you/ can get some rest at home! No spooky spirits wandering around moaning and groaning about their beds! No TVs randomly turning on and waking anyone sleeping on the couch! No more having the puddles scared out of you! Legacy Acres... if you love your relatives (and your sanity) you'll make us the final resting place of choice for the dearly departed.

A view from the front of the property, looking east. Had to include that sign, too.

Same position, but looking west. Stupid random floating rock! I think that's actually on a lot on the other side of the hill.

The plots go around the outside of the property and are in order of generation. Here are the G1 Legacy's, founder Laurie (left) and her husband Curtis. And some flowers and a candle to spiff the plot up a bit.

Next in line, G2 heir Lucas (left.. the heir/heiresses will always be on the left) and his wife Trista. Lucas slipped into gold /right/ before Grimmy came, so no platinum stone for him. Trista was hit by a satellite.

Standing in for G3 heiress is a pretty pot. I have no clue what happened to Tina's stone; I was positive I still had it. :/ The stone belongs to her second husband, Viktor. Her first husband was Edward, but I think I lost his stone when I tried to move his stone into a sub-community lot (which I didn't know you shouldn't do. Oops).

Two of my favorite sims here. G4 heiress Radiance and her husband Nery. They're the ones who gave me two sets of twins for G5; the first set was a regular twin set, and the second were Nery's alien twins.

G5 heir Orion (back in the corner, there) and his wife, the mean ol' bat herself, Celeste. HaHA, Celeste! Now you can't cause mayhem back at home by scaring the living daylights out of your descendants! HAHA!

Represented here are G6 heiress Janet and her husband Jonathan. I deleted their stones ages ago (back before we could move stones to community lots) because they were angry, angry, ANGRY ghosts. Janet was scared to death and JonBoy melted (burned alive). Man, were they all sorts of pissed off about dying early. Also in here should be Janet's brother, Trevor, who was electrocuted as a teen. But I can't find his stone either.

Here we have G8 heir Calvin and his wife, Tara. G8, you say? Yeah. To the left there is an empty plot of G7 heir Axel and his wife Arianna. They moved out of the Legacy house to make room for Calvin's 10 Kids want, so they're both still alive and kicking in a satellite house. Calvin and Tara had 11 kids (the last two were twins) and they were hilarious ghosts. But since I had to bulldoze and rebuild the lot, they thought I'd tossed their beds so they became pretty angry. Too bad, because I loved them both.

Another of my favorite ever sims. G9 heiress Sheridan and her husband, Armando.

G10 heiress Genesis and her husband, Dawson.

G11 heiress Cashlyn and her husband, Grayson. Cashlyn was the one who had a thing for her son-in-law Vincent (and he for her) which brought about a lot of Furiousness in the family for a while.

G12 heiress Ryven and her husband, Vincent. Also in here should be Ryven's brother, Dallas, who drowned as a child. But I obviously tossed that stone because having a ghost boy leaving water puddles everywhere got old pretty darn quickly.

G13 heir Noah and his wife, Linda. Which I don't think I've updated the Legacy's up to Linda's death yet.. so, surprise! She dies! Shocking for a legacy challenge, ain't it? ;) Have I mentioned that in game I'm already on G16? And so far here I haven't updated through all of Kaili's (G14 heiress) kids yet? Oops! Anyway. Noah and Linda are the last set of people stones I have, since G14 are still alive and kicking (albeit as elders). I'll probably keep the G14 stones on the Legacy lot for a while, since they shouldn't be all grumpy about their beds. But they'll get moved here eventually to keep the lot from slowing down too much.

Two of the dog stones, Murphy and Delilah.

And their daughter, Sulhaya.

Looking across the cemetery from the northeast corner.

And looking out across from the northwest corner. I kept those middle sections sparse because eventually that's all going to be split up to make room for more generations of Legacy stones and I want to be able to tear down stuff in there pretty quickly.

So there we have it! That's the Legacy cemetery. Pretty simple and such, but I don't plan on my sims really visiting it. Just a nice place to keep the stones so they aren't slowing down the main lot/driving me crazy with all their whining about their beds.

Hey, guys!

2007-06-08T00:22:44Z

Sorry for the absence, guys! Real Life has just not been kind to me lately. I'm in the middle of searching for a new job the last couple of months and so I've had no desire to really play video games all that much (whenever I sit down to play, I always get the feeling I should be job searching instead). Hopefully things even out soon, though, as I know I was behind on updating to begin with. I'd been hoping that the news of the next expansion pack would get me excited about Sims enough to play a little more, but.. ugh. I hated Vacation and I'm not looking forward to Bon Voyage either. I hate having my sims leave their lot because with the addition of Seasons my game slowed down a bit and going to community lots has always been horrible. I'd skip Bon Voyage all together, but of /course/ it looks like they've added asian-themed clothes and objects which I /love/ and have wanted forever, so it looks like I'll be getting Bon Voyage just for that. Bah. Here's hoping the EP /after/ Bon Voyage will be something new and refreshing. I'm not liking all the rehashed EPs we're getting. I hope with Sims 3 they at least include some of the "old" stuff with the base game. Especially stuff like weather and pets, which are the things people always want.

Anyway! I don't really have an update ready to go (nor the energy to write one) but maybe someday soon I'll at least get some pictures up. Today I built a community cemetary for the Legacy's so that I could move all those 13 generations worth of graves off their home lot because, man, were there some pissed off ghosts! I'd had to bulldoze and rebuild the Legacy lot not too long ago and when I did that, it made the ghosts lose all connection to their beds and stuff, so even thought I still have their beds, they don't have the connections to them. So they're all sorts of ticked off and were spending all their time scaring everyone. Which got annoying. And all those ghosts slowed the lot down, because I'd have three haunting /every night/.. plus 8 sims and however many pets. It just got crazy. Hopefully their lot will run smoother now that all those graves are gone.

Hope y'all are doing well!

-- Audrey

McNeil: It's the Hard Knock Life

2007-03-11T21:12:57Z

Seasons is here! And man, it has been kicking my butt! Or, rather, the McNeil's butts. Honestly, I've felt so sorry for them lately. But let's get to it, shall we?

OK, maybe not right to it. Here's a picture of the penguin. Who honestly came around a /lot/. He's a cute little thing, but that kind of wore off after a while. I personally wish he.. did.. something. Aside from chatting up unfinished snowmen about burglars. Also, I swear the stupid bird is psychic...

Here's Jan Tellerman (now Jan McNeil, wife of the McNeil founder, Harris) in her winter gear. Petting the penguin.

OK, here we go! You may or may not remember that by the end of the last update, Harris and Jan had three boys: Charlie, Evan and Mitchell. Charlie and Even were now both children, while Mitchell was a toddler. So in this picture we have Charlie and Evan (the one standing up). I'd sent the boys out to play for a bit before the school bus would come. I tested out snowball fighting for a brief second, then had the two work on a snowman together. I'd thought I was keeping a good eye on their temperature meters until all of a sudden I noticed that Evan's icon had him with pale, blue-ish skin. I cancelled out his snowman building action and queued up him going to warm himself by the fireplace. A warning popped up that if Evan didn't get warmed up, the social worker would come. I figured I was in the clear because, hey, he was going inside to warm himself by the fireplace, right? Wrong! Evan had NOT moved towards the house, but had dropped the action in favor of freezing. Charlie was only few steps from his brother, so I sent him to warm Evan up. He was in the middle of doing so when the social worker showed up (and that's him unfreezing there in the picture). But the social worker is a mean lady and I lost all three kids in one go.

Needles to say, I was a bit shocked, as I've never had children taken by the social worker in a situation where I'm controlling them. I was also pretty bummed, as I'd had Evan pegged to be the heir and now I'd have to start all over with the having kids again. Harris and Jan were only somewhat bummed. But I did send Jan out to finish building the snowman her boys had started.

Having gone with the eXtreme start, Harris was a whole sim week older (and maybe a smidge more) than Jan. So he gets home from work (SWAT Team Leader) one day and instantly ages to an elder. He makes a rather dashing geezer, don't he?

Sicne they needed another kid to move on with the legacy, Jan and Harris started in on new kids almost right after the boys were taken. And their first child post-social worker? Little Shelly here. Who is adorable and cute (and, because I forgot to roll the pacifier, she's pretty much a clone of Mitchell) and all.. but I'm going with the Patriarch handicap for this legacy. Which means all the heirs need to be male. So, it's another try at a kid for the McNeil's.

Poor Jan. Being a Romance sim, I'm sure spending most of her adult life pregnant and potty-training toddlers was not what she had in mind.

Remember when I said the penguin was psychic? Yeah. The poor McNeil's. I was playing them and all of a sudden I heard funky music and the Buy/Build options grayed out. I looked, and there was good ol' Russ Bear sneaking along towards their house. It figures. The Legacy's, in all their 15 generations, have never owned a burglar alarm and have been burglar free all that time. The McNeil's hadn't yet bought a burglar alarm.. they get their three kids taken away from them.. and he shows up.

And goes right into Shelly's room. I half wondered if he was going to kidnap her. He did not. He took the TV and piano.

Luckily, although they lacked a burglar alarm, Harris was quick getting to the phoen to call the cops. And after a brief buttkicking, the officer whose name I cannot remember promtly arrested dear ol' Russ.

And Shelly promptly rolled up the want to see Russ' ghost. Pretty creepy thought for a toddler! Also, Harris and Jan cried more over their lost TV than they ever did for the three kids that got taken by the social worker.

Perdita, Harris' longtime dalmatian friend, passes away. Her mate, Butch (the gray dog) and daughter Ai (the white dog) mourn. Shelly and Jan are asleep and Harris is at work, so no sobbing from the lot of them. The maid just looks bored as she goes to clean the dog bed.

With spring came my first rainstorm in Seasons. Man, the thunder really startled me sometimes! Lightning also promptly struck one of the trees, which just looked awesome. The smaller tree to the front of the property is an apple tree, but it's always sickly. I think maybe because the spring and summer in this neighborhood are sandwiched between two winters? I dunno. I'm going to try building a greenhouse around it when the McNeil's get enough cash.

Anyway. The struck tree caught fire and burned for a bit before the rain put it out. The McNeil's didn't even notice.

Later the tree got struck for a second time during the same storm. Harris had been out checking the mail, so he freaked out. The rain put the fire out pretty fast. Later, same storm, the tree got struck and put on fire for a THIRD time. Man!

<

Inside, Jan gave birth to what is her 5th child. This one is another boy. Cheer! His name is Malcolm. And he is, again, a clone of Mitchell and his sister Shelly. Doh! Because I want to see if I could get better points from a non-clone, I have Harris and Jan try again for another baby. Er.. ignore the green fumes from the dirty dog bed. Stupid things.

Here's Shelly, all grown up as a child. In the snow! The second winter - sandwiched between a spring and summer - didn't get as much snow as the first winter. And Shelly is still furious with Russ Bear about the burglary. Girl knows how to hold a grudge.

Don't break your neck to look at the ghost dog, Shelly. Perdita haunts, and spends most of her time messing with the bathtubs.

But, since almost everyone in the house at the time had a want to get a kitten (or a puppy or kitten), the McNeil's went ahead and adopted a little black kitten named Dolphin. Here's Harris gettin' some love from the new family member.

Here's Malcolm as a toddler. With that hairstyle, he looks incredibly like his oldest brother, Charlie. Also.. it looks like they finally added in randomized hairstyles for toddlers? It started happening for me with the Pets patch, but they usually got the wrong color hair (a blond would get brown hair, for example). Since installing Seasons, the hairstyles are randomized AND the right color. Huzzah!

And here's Shelly playing with Dolphin, who is meant to be her cat. She'll take him with her when she moves out of the house.

Shelly plays a little catch with little Brittany Parker. I think during their entire game, neither of them actually caught the ball. It was cute!

Ah. Here's Ai, running back home. She and Butch (her father) do NOT get along. At all. I didn't even realize until all of a sudden Ai ran away! Harris called and reported her missing, and a couple sim days later she was returned. Checking her and Butch's relationship with each other, I discovered that they are enemies! Each has a -100 daily AND lifetime relationship. So the house often erupts in chases and fights between the two of them. Luckily, they both get on well enough with Dolphin.

This is the guy who brought Ai back. I forget his name. He looks kind of creepy, though.

Malcolm playing with big sister Shelly before she goes to school. Oh. Shelly missed her first day of school because she was playing with a toddler Malcolm with the logic toy and got stuck, so I had to delete her with move_objects. She appeared back beside the bus, but it wouldn't let me click on the bus to make her go to school! So she got a D and I got another warning about the social worker, and spent my time worrying that the McNeil's would lose two more kids! Luckily that didn't happen.

Jan thinks Shelly is a bit too young for /that/ discussion. Honestly!

Jan gives birth to her sixth child, another little girl named Penny. Doh! Wanted a boy. I, of course, forgot to take a picture of the actual baby, so here is a reaction shot of Harris, Shelly and the maid reacting to Jan's screeches of pain.

Waiting for his carpool to arrive, Harris is terrorized by a wolf. All the wolves I'd had visit so far to any of my families have been fairly nice, so this was different!

Shelly is still all sorts of ticked off at Russ Bear! And that's Ivy Copur holding Pikachu back there. She came home from work with Harris and spent the entire night trying to talk through Pikachu or the plush giraffe to other people. Drove me (and the McNeil's) nuts. And that's a toddler Penny sitting in the high chair who you can't see because of Ivy and Pikachu.

Poor Malcolm. First he had pink pjs.. and now he has a pink scarf.

There's a bit better shot of little Penny.

Ai does not like Komei Whats-His-Face, no she does not!

Remember how I said Butch and Ai were always fighting? Have I mentioned that it's, like, /all the time/? I have no clue how they got to hate each other so much. They're father and daughter!

That looks.. y'know, Jan, you're supposed to put Penny on the /toilet/.

In the McNeil's Pleasantview, it snows in summer! Seriously, it's summer. With snow. I think it's because summer is sandwiched between two winters, so it doesn't have enough time in the 5 days to gradually warm up?

Perdita haunts again, spooking a poor, pregnant (again) Jan. Oops.

The penguin visits. Also in summer.

Dolphin grows up! He's pretty cute. And he doesn't spend all his time fighting with the dogs.

Shelly comes home from school and brings with her Charlie! Her big brother who got taken by the social worker!

Jan gives her firstborn a hug. He really should be a teen by now. Poor guy! Cursed to be a child forever now!

Malcolm on the left, Charlie on the right. Told you they look alike!

Jan goes into labor again. This time in the bathroom, with Shelly and Charlie looking on.

It's a boy! They name him Luke. So now there are two choices for heirdom in the McNeil family, Malcolm and Luke. I'll wait t'see what Luke's personality points turn out like before deciding. Also, I've heard rumor that the babies don't stop crying in Seasons or something? Mine do fine.. but I've found out I now have to play with the babies otherwise they lay there in the crib and scream (before, I just had the sims change their diaper, feed them cuddle them and then put them back to bed.. so now I just add playing with the baby in there after changing the diaper). I HAVE noticed that toddlers seem to stay awake for a lot longer, which is sort of annoying for me. Oh well!

Shelly becomes a teenager, with the Knowledge aspiration. And.. I forget what her lifetime want is.

Penny becomes a child!

And, finally, Jan becomes an elder. No more babies for her! What a sad adult life she had for a Romance sim, popping out all them kids. But she never once had a Have a Baby fear or anything, so maybe she didn't mind too much. Poor Harris the Family sim ends up three kids short of fulfilling his Have 10 Kids want. I let Jan age figuring they would adopt 3 kids. It wasn't until later that I remembered that because they lost the first three kids to the social worker, they wouldn't be allowed to adopt. Oh, well!

No clue when my next update will be. Real Life has seen fit to throw anything and everything at me the last few months and usually I don't have time to play Sims, or when I do, I'm too exhausted. Hopefully my load eases up, though, with Seasons here so that I'll have more of a chance to play and update. Hope y'all are doing well! I'll try to get caught up on blogs here in the next week. I'm behind again!

Remember me?!

2007-03-07T07:25:55Z

HEY GUYS! I know, I haven't updated in an age. It's been one of those things, though, y'know? Life is way too busy to allow even any play time when I want to play Sims.. but then when I DO have free time, there're just a million other things I'd rather be doing. Money has been tight, so I didn't know when I would be able to get Seasons, which just put another damper on my desire to sit down and play. Luckily, I had a bit of money leftover from paying my last couple bills, so I rewarded myself and went out today and picked up Seasons!

And let me tell y'all.. Seasons is just kicking my butt. My goodness! Most likely the biggest thing was my first ever visit from the social worker in one of my main families. I was -- OK, yeah, I'm gunna spoil it here because, trust me, when I get around to their update I'm severely lacking in pictures, so, might as well! -- I was playing the McNeil's. They had three boys. The oldest two were kids, the youngest had just become a toddler. The two kids were out playing in the snow, building a snowman before school. And I know you're supposed to keep an eye on their temperature thing, so when I looked over at them after having been tending to the others, I was surprised to see one of them turning all pale! So I canceled out his building snowman action and set him up to go warm himself by the fire. Then I made the mistake of going to check on someone else in the house. I wasn't gone for more than a game minute or two. I got back over to them, and the boy who was close to freezing was NOT moving towards the house! He had dropped that action in favor of, well.. freezing. I got the warning to warm him up or the social worker would come, so I hurried to cancel out his brother's building the snowman action so he could warm him up. The freezing kid was only a step or two away from his brother, so I thought I was safe. But no sooner had the brother stopped building the snowman and turned to warm up his freezing brother.. the social worker was there! I thought I was supposed to get more time to attempt to fix whatever was wrong before the social worker arrived.. but she was there before the warning message had even vanished. I was shocked.

Those little thermometer bars go from normal to overheated or freezing pretty darn quick. I mean, those boys hadn't been out in the snow for too long and the one froze (even though he was in outerwear). And they get overheated from just about /anything/.. playing catch, jumping on their beds. I had Harris running on the treadmill and his bar went completely red after only a few sim minutes, it seemed. So.. I'm still adjusting to having to keep an eye on that.

I haven't tried too much gardening yet. The McNeil's have an apple tree, but it's forever sickly. No matter how much I tend it or how many lady bug things I put around it, it's still sickly.

I do love the look of the falling snow, though. So gorgeous. I do NOT like that sims are forever getting a "It's Snowing!" thing stuck up in their queue and looking out the window at it. Looking forward to seeing rain and hailstorms in the game too.

Anyway! I hope to get an update out.. sometime. I don't want to promise anything, knowing how horrid I am with getting things done lately. Hopefully soon, though! <3

Legacy: I Need to Learn to Take More Pictures

2007-01-15T22:52:48Z

It's been quite a while since I updated the Legacy's, and they've come quite a ways. I had a million pictures (or so it seemed) but so many of them seemd like random, pointless pictures and not pictures of things that would have been /useful/ and I ended up cutting a lot of them out. Hopefully I can remember to touch on everything I wanted to. XD

Anyway. Last time with the Legacy's, the G12 bunch - heiress Ryven and her husband, Vincent - passed away. The G13 heiress, Cecily, went buggy as a teen and was unable to become the heiress (she moved across the street with her husband, Marcel, and has 4 kids). Cecily's brother, Noah, became the heir. He married Linda and they had 3 children: Kerrigan, Jamie and Kaili. Kaili became the heiress (going with my new "male heir one gen, female heir the next gen" heir picking technique) and her two brothers moved out after Kerrigan became an adult.

Here is G13 heir, Noah. He's headed off to work as a mad scientist.. and seems to be thinking that he might be getting a bit old for his line of work.

And here's Noah playing fetch with one of the family dogs, Murphy.

I ended up getting rid of a lot of the graves on the lot because I was having 3 ghosts haunting every night and it was beginning to be a bit much, not only on me but on my computer. Especially because some of those graves came from the original Legacy family lots and, not having their beds, they were pretty darn cranky. So I took a picture of the family plots before I cleaned it out.

The wife of the G5 heir, Celeste the grumpy ol' badger floats around thinking of.. herself. She always was a crazy old coot, even when she was alive.

The Legacy's teenage G14 heiress, Kaili, ventures downtown and meets Missy. Missy is from G8, though she's only half-relaetd to the family (she is the daughter of Arianna, the wife of the G7 heir). Poor Missy. I never play her house so she's been pregnant for, like, ever. XD Her pregnancy even reset itself after I installed Pets; she'd been on her 2nd bump, but after the Pets installation, she hadn't even gotten her first bump yet. Poor dear! If only I played my satellite families, she'd be dead and gone by now! Edit: OK. I played Missy's family and, thanks to the Twins-Triplets-Quads hack, she had triplets, two girls and a boy! So now there are 8 sims (2 adults, 1 teen, 2 kids, 3 infants) plus one puppy in that house. The teen and kids are G9 Legacy kids, by the way (Bernadette, Tobias and Coby).

And while out shopping, Kaili runs across her Aunt Cecily, who was supposed to have been the G13 heiress. Now Cecily lives across the street with her husband and four kids.

Oh, this was hilarious. There is no backdoor to the Legacy house, and really I keep nothing out back except the gravestones anyway. Well, I was considering moving the graves to a cemetary community lot and, not knowing how that worked, I sent Linda here (wife of Noah) out to the family graveyard. She proceeded to freak out multiple times in a row as if to say, "OMG! Where did all these graves come from?! What have I gotten myself into by marrying into this family?!"

I know, so far I'm showing hardly anything of the current family. I just took so many random pictures, it seems like. This here is Edward. He was the husband of G3 heiress, Tina, and he fathered her four kids. He died of starvation and Tina later remarried (but had no more kids because she turned elder the night of that wedding). I think I sent him off to the community lot and he popped up to wave goodbye.

Speaking of G7.. this here is Axel, the G7 heir. I'd moved him and his wife, Arianna, out of the house because his son, G8 heir Calvin and his wife Tara, were going for my first "Have 10 Kids" want and I needed room in the house. And Axel was also my 2nd Romance sim heir/ess in the Legacy family and I wasn't ready to deal with one of them yet. So he's still alive (and about a day from elder, if I recall correctly).

Noah, chatting online! I'd never noticed that they had little IM windows before!

Aha. Here is the other family dog, Delilah. She and Murphy had a second litter of pups (their first was a single pup named Boreal). This litter consisted of three pups, two females and a male: Sulhaya, Bashka and Samiel. It made for a crazy house: three humans (Noah, Linda and Kaili) plus the two adult dogs and three puppies. Made worse by the fact that the house is on a foundation, so when the pups had to go potty, one of the sims had to carry them down the front steps (annoying!).

Murphy becomes an elder. Not that you can tell. Elder pets don't seem to have as obvious differences as elder sims.

Kaili becomes an adult at long last! She's a Family sim, so I planned for her to do the Have 10 Kids want. Because I like torture, apparently. And hey, I haven't done the 10 Kids want since G3 of the Everson's!

So Kaili invited over her friend Sinjin the bug killer guy, they got married and did the baby dance. Can't waste time!

Murphy watches over his three pups. Every single puppy my sims have had have all come out pure white. I nkow markings and things aren't supposed to show up until they're adults, but they could at least give different base colors for the puppies. I'm tired of all white!

A pregnant Kaili tickles the ivories and belts out a tune. I like to call this the "Elton John pose."

The puppies (FINALLY!) grow up. And no, no, NO! Sulhaya (in the back) looks just fine. In fact, I ended up keeping her. But Bashka.. I have no idea what went wrong! It's like she's the illegitimate child of the Social Bunny or something. I have no clue where those ears come from since both parents have floppy ears. *shudder* Scary.

Here's a grown up Samiel, who looks just like his sister Sulhaya, but with a smooth coat.

G15 is here! And it's.. a girl! Named Sinley. I'm looking for a male for the next heir, but Kaili still has 9 kids to go, so I'm not going to worry about naming an heir for a while yet.

Look, it's a father-daughter howl-a-long!

Delilah becmes an elder. It's a bit more obvious on her, since she has darker fur than Murphy.

G8 heir, Calvin, floats along by. He and Murphy take note of each other.

I forget the pack leader's name, but someone greeted him and he invited himself in to chew on the Legacy dogs' toys. Murphy seems to not want to interfere and I don't blame him. Would YOU want to mess with a wolf with glowing eyes? Didn't think so.

Kaili, who is pregnant again, plays with little Sinley.

And here's Sinley as a toddler! I love that hairstyle.

I love when sims makeout on the couch. XD

Something is screwy with the Creativity toddler toy. If anyone else tries to join, they end up like Linda here.. and then jump out of the action all together. I haven't tried replacing the toy with a new one. Too lazy. XD;

Kaili has another baby! And this time, it's a little boy.. Henry! And I have no clue what the heck Linda is doing. It looks like she needs to hurry along to the bathroom, though.

I'm horrible with pictures lately. Sinley has already become a child and here she is, off to her first day at school!

Grimmy has come for Murphy.. who Kaili has known since she was a toddler. Grimmy is wanting to know when he can retire because, 15 generations of Legacy's and now he has to deal with their PETS too?! Here's hoping that Grimmy is getting overtime.

"Want the stick boy? Huh? You want it? Want it? Fetch!" Does anyone else think it would have been a lot more funny if Grimmy had brought a bone instead of a stick (given the type of work he does)?

The pet graves? So much cooler than the ones for the sims.

Little Sinley didn't get very many personality points (0 Neat, 7 Outgoing, 9 Active, 10 Playful and 1 Nice) so she likes to cheat at chess. Something that really, REALLY ticks off Kaili. Sinley claims innocence.

Kaili and Sinjin's third child is another girl! Her name is Jessa. From now until the 10th baby comes, just assume that Kaili is always pregnant. Because she usually is (the baby comes, she hands it off to someone and she and Sinjin head back to the bedroom to get started on the next one). And.. I don't have any more pics of Jessa this update, even though she's a child by the end of it. Ooops.

An autonomous action from the pet.. Delilah goes over and gives Henry - now a toddler, and with better personality than his sister: NOAPN is 8-5-10-9-3) - a few loving licks. Very cute!

First ghost doggy! Murphy haunts the house, pretty much just floating around and around the yard.

Henry grows up! Quite the little cutie.

Now it's Delilah's turn to be called upon by Grimmy.. and this time even the maid is depressed about it! But now I am left with one dog in the house, and man is it NICE. It is so hard trying to keep up with three dogs, especially with trying to keep them all washed. And I don't have to refill the food bowls constantly.

I still love the pet gravestones more than the sims ones.

Sinjin, a Knowledge sim, maxed all his skills! Which explains why you haven't seen a lot of him in this update; he was always off skill building when he wasn't at work. Next up, his LTW: Become a Mad Scientist.

Kaili goes into labor with baby #4.. and nobody cares. Noah, Linda and Sinjin just go about having their breakfast.

Oh. Hm. I don't have a picture of the new baby. Oops! But it was another girl who got named Becca. Here, have a picture of the maid lecturing no one in particular. Seriously, there was no one else there so I don't know what she was so cheesed about.

With 8 sims in the house, plus one dog, plus another baby on the way.. yeah, things were getting crowded. Noah's time came as he reached the ripe old age of 77. A Knowledge sim himself, Noah died in permaplat. We'll miss ya, buddy! I was kind of expecting Linda to go around the same time.. but no dice.

Kaili, pregnant with #5 (halfway!), watches TV with three of her four kids: Henry, Jessa (oh hey, I DO have a kid pic of Jessa! Yay!) and Sinley. Sinley and Henry have just become best friends. There's Sulhaya in the background and kid #4, Becca, is off to the right playing with a toy.

Becca, aka: Kid 4, is a toddler. I love that hairstyle too.

We're halfway done! Kid #5 is a boy! Henry will finally have another boy to pal around with. That poor kid has put up with three sisters so far. Anywho! Baby #5 is named John Travis (a name that my brother and his wife are considering for their upcoming baby, should it be a boy). And Kaili quickly gets pregnant with kiddo #6 (she needs at least 6 kids anyway, since her LTW is to marry off 6 kids).

And we'll end this update with one of those WTF moment pictures. It's one in the morning. Linda recently got home from work, and Sinjin was up feeding John Travis and getting Becca out of her crib. So they sat down to eat. And then all of a sudden Marcel (the blond guy) comes walking into the house, uses their restroom and helps himself to some Jello. Marcel IS married to a Legacy kid (the one-time G13 heiress, Cecily), but no one in the house currently knows him. So why he came walking into the house, without ringing the doorbell, at one in the morning is beyond me. None of his kids were at the house.. although Henry /was/ talking to Marcel's daughter Lizzie until a little after midnight. Weird!

So there we are! All caught up. It seems like a lot more has happened than was shown in the pictures, though. I need to get back in the rhythm of taking pictures for updates. I'm getting rusty with all these long breaks I keep taking! But hopefully I'll get another update out soon. I've been playing all three of my families recently.. I just need to force myself to sit down at the computer and NOT play and NOT surf the Internet so I can get updates done! ;D Anyway. In the next Legacy update, expect more kids. Kaili has 5 more to go! And.. I'll try to remember to take more pictures of those kids, and not random pictures of Legacy family members from generations ago. ;D

McNeil: Meet the McNeil's

2007-01-12T21:35:28Z

Hi, guys! Again, I'm not dead. For some reason, this year my immune system just SUCKS so it feels like I've constantly been sick. But I have been playing Sims. I feel so horrible having not updated. And I feel so far behind! The only family I haven't played since last update are the Everson's. The Legacy's are WAAAAY behind and I almost fear trying to do their update. So we'll start with my new family that I promised you all: the McNeil's!

Meet Harris McNeil. Family sim. I am playing this family with some of the new handicaps that are available with the updated legacy challenge rules. If I remember correctly, the handicaps I've chosen are Patriarchy (only male heirs), eXtreme (5x5 lot, no marry/move-in sims for a week), Strict Family Values (Family sim founder, always Try For Baby, no woohoo outside of marriage, only woohoo with spouse), and Hypochondriac (founder has 10 neat and stink turn-off, every room has a sink, quarantine sick sims). Oh. I also think I have Free Roaming Ghosts, but we'll see how long that lasts, since you HAVE to keep EVERY grave now. We shall see! But, Harris! Cutie, ain't he?

And this is Harris' faithful companion, a female dalmatian named.. Perdita. Because I am oh-so-original like that. I was going to try and go for a "petacy" so I could have 10 generations of dogs alongside my 10 generations of sims. For reasons I shall get to, I have decided that I won't do that. At least, not in this family.

A man and his dog. It's a beautiful thing. Starting off with a pet was great for that much need Social at all the ungodly hours that other sims yell at you for ringing them up on the phone, especially since I couldn't move another sim in for a week.

And Harris, neat freak that he is, enjoyed cleaning the toilet and the shower, giving him a teeny tiny bit of Fun. Which was helpful since he didn't have money to buy anything. /ANYTHING/!

It really sucks to be a bachelor in an eXtreme start. This is everything that Harris had the money for. A bone and food dish for Perdy, a pizza, toilet, sink and shower. I wasn't sure if he /needed/ the sink, since for the Hypochondriac handicap it says at least one sink is needed in every room.. but Harris didn't even have a /room/. He had a /wall/. But I figured better safe than sorry, so I went sink over telephone.

Harris couldn't even afford the cheapest bed for his dog. Poor Perdita had to sleep on the ground.

And Harris had to sleep standing up.

Note to self: Cats are probably better eXtreme Legacy Challenge starter pets. They clean themselves. Dogs, they do not clean themselves. Perdita got stinky in a hurry and Harris couldn't afford a bathtub. She was stinky for a very good long while.

It got to the point where Harris couldn't even afford the $10 to fill Perdita's food bowl. Yes, it really got that bad. I consider myself an experienced Sims player, and the start for this family was just incredibly challenging!

You know what they say.. desperate times call for desperate measures. And no, that isn't a puddle from the toilet or shower. Ahem. I should probably explain Harris' job situation. His first job was in Culinary. Of course, his first day was a day off. And then the job paid so very little that just covering bills and Perdita's food would wipe it all out. The money situation got pretty desperate, so on his first day off, when the paper came I had him get a new job (one I was sure would work that day) just so that he would hav money coming in. I think I did the job switch once or twice more before he landed with Law Enforcement. Then I had Perdita get a job as well (at one point, she was making more money than Harris!).

Eventually, they were able to afford a bathtub and Perdita could get her much needed bath.

As the week began to draw to a close, I sent Harris downtown to check out some ladies (I wanted to get someone - ANYONE! - moved in as quickly as possible to help with the money situation). He met a couple girls he hit it off with pretty well.

And he later called them up to raise that ol' friendship meter.

Finally, they had enough money to buy poor Perdita her own bed.

Harris had his own cheap bed. It didn't work too well, but at least his energy recovered a bit faster than it did sleeping on the ground. As Harris plays with a stray dog in the background, the woman in the foreground is Marisa Robinshire. She's from an abandoned legacy challenge family of mine, the Robinshire's. Her husband, Basil, is the founder and he is the local King of Robinshire (aka: Pleasantview). Marisa is, apparently, the out-and-about sort of Queen. Honestly, Harris, you shouldn't ignore the Queen when she comes to visit!

Enter Jan Tellerman. Hi, Jan! I liked her looks a lot better than those of the other two girls and she and Harris hit it off right away. When Harris wasn't complaining about his bottomed out Comfort level, anyway (he had a Comfort meter problem almost that entire first week because of lack of bed/crappy bed).

Harris could be pretty darn charming when he wanted to be. Although he lacked good manners. He brought a very beautiful girl home from work to flirt with, and then went about ignoring her the entire time (but she played with Perdita, so all was well!).

Long story short, Jan moved in as quickly as possible. She brought a decent chunk of cash with her, as well as her job at the top of the Slacker career. Oh, and all this junk: two pianos, a vase, an oven, champagne, another vase, aquarium, statue, stereo and the Slacker career reward object. I sold everything but one of the pianos. Yay, money!

Money meant not only could they now afford a good quality double bed, but a real house! With more than one wall! And a roof!

And /carpet/! Really, they were living the high life. As Perdita demonstrates (sort of).

Harris proposed promptly, which Jan agreed to. And I was surprised that she, as a Romance sim, had no fear of marriage or having kids. It was great!

As an angagement/wedding gift, Harris bought Jan a dog. Meet Butch! I lve his build. Very thick and muscular.

They were newlyweds with a legacy to continue (and Jan was a Romance sim), what else were they supposed to do?

Luckily, Perdita and Butch got along just as well.

And before long, there were two expectant mothers in the house. And shame on you, Ben Long! You really shouldn't hang around and listen to that kind of stuff.

As an odd aside.. see the message up there? It's announcing that a sim of mine, Fresno Freewill, is healthy again. Which I thought was odd. Fresno and his family were part of an experiment I did with freewill on sims. I had two adults, two teens, two kids and two toddlers. Fresno and his sister, Fran, the two teenagers, were the only survivors (everyone else died by fire, except the two toddlers who were taken away). I felt bad for Fresno and Fran and gave them their own house and such. And it's odd because Fresno hadn't been ill. And when Jan was talking to him on the phone, I suddenly got the message that he was better. Odd!

Generation 2 comes ever closer...

But first, some new arrivals of the furry sort. Mommy Perdita begins to glow, and it looks like Butch is looking on in concern (he's actually getting ready to settle down by that bone).

Tada! Two brand new cookie-cutter puppies! A male, Chaka, and a female, Ai.

Not too much later, it's Jan's turn to deliver. Except she has to agonize over it. She doesn't get to just glow like the dog did. And hey, Harris. This is your first child. You could try a little more excitement and a little less dull staring.

It's a boy! Just what we needed, since this is a Patriarchal family and all. His name is Charlie.

Charlie's babyhood went by in a flash. Soon enough, he was a toddler. A toddler who gets really annoyed when those blocks don't fit, man.

But hey, he's also incredibly cute.

Double the cuteness! Cute kid plus cute puppy plus cuddling.. it's almost too much.

Oops. Dog fight! Perdita and Butch go at it. And it looks like the old girl is getting her tail beaten. In the background, Jan, preggo with kid number dos, rescues a fit-pitching Charlie from his high chair.

But look! Buth turns out to be nothing more than a big ol' wuss and cowers before the might and muscle of the aging dalmatian girl.

That.. looks kind of painful, Charlie. Butch watches his pups play in the background, like the good dad that he is.

The pups grow up! First Chaka. Who I later put up for adoption to help ease the crowd in the small house.

And then Ai, who was kept when I still had the intention of doing the whole "petacy" thing. But I've discovered that having more than two dogs in the house is a real pain. Having just these three - Perdita, Butch and Ai - is a pain when it comes to having to refill the food dishes all the time, wash them all the time. And especially in the small house, with three dogs, one of them is always in the way. Maybe it'd be easier with cats, who are more independant. But it also gets annoying when three dogs or cats are begging your sim for attention, making your sim drop other actions. Bah. A pain! So.. after Ai, I'm going back to only one or two pets per house. Easier on me that way.

Jan goes into labor for the second time (while Charlie cuddles Pikachu)...

And gives birth to another brown-haired, blue-eyed little boy. This one gets named Evan.

And here's where I stopped playing for ages and ages, and then went back and did a fair amount.. but only took a few pictures. Ooops. Anyway! Jan gets pregnant with a third and final child. They expand the house to have another bedroom, a den for the piano, and a second bathroom. Evan becomes a toddler and Charlie becomes a child who wonders if the other kids will laugh at him for having a dad that likes to wear a hat with a green lightbulb on it.

I thought this was amusing. Butch and his daughter, Ai, get into a rumble. Jan is all excited and cheers on Butch, while poor Charlie worries about Ai and tries to cover his eyes. Butch did when the fight eventually. Much to Charlie's dismay.

We'll close with this picture of little Evan playing while Jan naps in the background (her third child would turn out to be another boy, Mitchell, who is also brown-haired and blue-eyed). An elderly Perdita (hard to tell because of all her white fur) chews on a bone.

Whew! So, that was a crash course in the McNeil's. By the by, none of the boys are named heir yet (I'm waiting to see what Mitchell's personality points turn out to be). I'm really hoping I can keep up with regular updates for a while so that I don't feel like I'm playing catch up too much (I fear the Legacy family update. FEAR!). If the Legacy update isn't next.. I'm hoping to maaaaybe get out a post highlighting some of the custom content in my game, to show that you can get good stuff for free. We'll see how that goes. Until next time, all!

Everson: Hey, Look! Not Dead!

2006-12-07T20:09:39Z

So! Here we are! We're going to check in on the Everson's today. Last time, G4 heir Dionysus passed away. He will be missed dearly.. but he did leave behind a lovely platinum Romance urn, so that more than makes up for it!

Here is Shelby, the wife of G5 heir Ra, checking the mail. She's fascinated with that wonderfully scented love letter.. although it's not even for her! The letter was left for Dionysus from his main chicky, Nancy. It should be noted that Nancy also called (two days after Big D's death) and said something to the effect of "Oh, Dionysus isn't home? OK, I'll try again later." Even though she had actually BEEN THERE when he died! I tried to get a screenshot of that, but forgot. It was pretty funny, though. And poor Shelby is probably upset that her husband doesn't send HER pink, scented love letters in the mail (she should complain).

Dionysus died and the family lost a load of friends (they went down to 1 family friend from, like, 12 or 13). It really sucked because Shelby had a LTW to reach the top of the Business career track.. and the day Dionysus died she had been promoted to CEO (one level below the top). So the whole family - Ra, Shelby and Odin - spent the next few days making friends like crazy. And it all paid off! Shelby came home from work and had been promoted to Business Tycoon! She also managed to earn $25,000.. helpful, since she's a Fortune sim and I'm trying to get the IW point for earning $100,000. Go, Shelby!

Here is G6 heir, Odin. Flying a kite. I felt bad for the kid because (Pleasure sim that he is) I don't fill a lot of his wants (I hate those piddly 500 point ones!). So I let him wander around for a few hours doing whatever he wanted. And all he wanted to do was fly the kite. Cute lil' guy, ain't he?

G5 heir, Ra, gets a fright from his grandfather, River. You're looking decidedly evil there, River ol' boy. River is one of the more active ghosts on the lot. Luckily, he's not MEAN.. but he does like to scare when he can.

Birthday time! Ra and Shelby age to elder on the same day. Shelby actually looks pretty nice in her outfit of choice. But Ra.. those PANTS. Remind me to go shopping for you some new clothes.

Odin was outside trimming the two hedges by the door. River jumped out and scared him while he was trimming the first bush. And then the poor kid moves over to the second hedge.. only to have Prof. Laura Mellon (one of Dionysus' lovers, she was eaten by the cowplant on accident) jump out and scare him again! Laura is one of the mean ghosts.. if she doesn't settle down soon, she may find her gravestone in the trash can.

Well. Odin became an adult. You know, in my other legacy family - the Legacy's - they started out with a few odd jaws and big lips, but that all ironed itself out by the 4th or 5th generation. With the Everson's, they have all come out gorgeous from the beginning. But with G5 - Odin and his sister, Bast - I noticed that their jaws seems to go a little funky when they became adults. It wasn't too bad.. just a little odd compared to previous generations. But Odin has taken that "little funky" to another level. His cheeks wonged - yes, wonged, there is no other word for it! - out and it makes him look a bit like he's got stuff crammed in his cheeks. It's so odd.

Odin invited over his friend - the family gardener, Tristen Tan - so he could put the moves on her and get started on that 7th generation. They flirted, and already being close to being best friends, immediately developed a crush on each other. But then Odin started to cry! I have no idea why either. Tristen hadn't rejected him.. and nothing had happened to him earlier in the day. And they were more than a week out from Dionysus' death so he wasn't still mourning (he never mourned much to begin with). Maybe he's sad that his cheeks look funny. Poor guy! It's OK, Odin. Tristen still likes you!

I got Tristen moved in, made over and had Odin (who got a change of clothes) propose. Of course she accepted! She's a Knowledge sim with the LTW to max all skills.. so there's an easy Plat urn for me. :D

And then one of the ghosts happened to be in the room and decided to levitate the microwave, so they both spooked. When they land, they kiss each other.. both still thinking about the microwave. It was pretty funny. XD And then they got married. Which just goes to show that apparently the floating microwave didn't concern them too much.

Poor Odin can't catch a break! Here he was trying to cuddle with his new bride and get down to business - hey, they get the room and bed that used to belong to Dionysus! - when his great grandmother, Tawaret, jumped out of the bed and scared him. I think she's upset that Odin didn't marry a family sim like herself. Ta' probably wants to see another 10 kids in this house (sorry Ta'.. not this gen).

After that interruption - and Tristen probably wondering just what she got herself into with all this "legacy" business - the newlyweds get down to doing what all newlyweds do: making babies. Well.. what all legacy challenge newlyweds do, anyway, as I don't know too many non-sim people who get down to making kids within half an hour of getting married. And sure enough, that gentle lullaby plays. Generation 7 is on the way!

Hey, chicky lady!

AHH!

AHH! Hey, no screaming!

Dionysus?!

Do you know another spirit who is this darn good-lookin'?

...

You gunna ask how I'm doin' or what?

Er.. well, seeing as how you're /dead/, I kinda figured I knew how you were doing.

Just ask, will you?

Alright, alright. So, Dionysus, how are you?

Wonderful! Man, this whole being dead thing sure is more fun than I'd thought it was going to be. Those Hula Babes can't get enough of me! Why just last night I was all stretched out on the biggest, most comfortable bed you could ever imagine and I was kissing one, had a second one all cuddled up on my other side and the third---

Very nice, Dionysus. I'm sure it was wonderful. So what are you doing here, then?

Oh. Well, them Hula Babes all had to go and hula some geezer into the afterlife over in New Sim City. So I figured I'd hop on over here and take over narration for a bit.

I'm doing just fine with that. But thanks anyway.

I hate to say it, boss, but your narration sucks. Honestly. I've checked some of your entries on that Legacy family of yours. Man, do those poor suckers have it rough. Reading their entries is about as fun as reading a math book. I don't want my family to fall victim to that. Plus, the people love me. Gotta give the people what they want (especially if they happen to be hot lookin' ladies).

Fine, fine. Go ahead. But please remember, Dionysus, keep it--

/Clean/, Yeah, fine, whatever. Go nag someone else for a bit. I'll handle this. *clears throat* Hello, ladies and gentlemen (but especially you ladies)! Bet y'all missed Big D, didn't you? Yeah, Big D missed you too. It ain't easy being the hunkiest dead guy around, you know. Those poor Hula Babes have to put up with boring old geezers most of the time. Speaking of babes, if any of you ladies out there happen to, you know, die.. come on over and visit! We'll have fun. *hint hint nudge nudge wink wink*

Dionysus!

Sorry, sorry! Er, anyway. Why don't we check in on what my family has been up to, eh? I haven't exactly been keeping track myself. Been kinda busy. *cough* Let's see. This here is Misty the cat. She was adopted by.. wait a minute! A cat?! How come I never had a cat?! Hey, chicky lady! I wanted a cat! Do you know how much chicks dig a man who owns a cat? How come I never got to have one?!

Sorry, Dionysus. I tried to hold off on playing your family until I'd gotten the Pets expansion, but you were so close to dying that I don't think you would have lasted long enough to get a cat or dog anyway. So sorry.

But that's not fair! I could have had a dog.. or a cat! This reeks of unfairness!

Uh, Dionysus? Aren't you going to narrate?

*sulk*

Oh, come on, Dionysus. Stop being such a baby. Pets are like having a toddler around all the time. You have to watch 'em, even when they're grown up. You wouldn't have liked that kind of responsibility. Now you just get to watch your family deal with it.

*sulk* I guess so. Who'd want a cat that claws up your furniture anyway? I mean, look at that! And those beds don't come cheap!

Oh, hey! What is up with the glowy-eyed mutt? Creepy. They really should call pest control for that thing. Or maybe a vet. They probably have a medication for that.

But what does my beloved grandson, Odin, do? He gives the glowy-eyed thing a belly rub! You know, I think that boy may be a few french fries short of a Happy Meal, if you know what I mean.

We finally come to something that isn't a stupid cat or glowy-eyed dog thing...

Sorry, Dionysus! But this update is kinda full of pet pictures because I focused on them a lot at first. Next update will be better, I promise.

Sure, boss. Anyway. This is my great granddaughter, the 7th generation heiress of the Everson estate, Athena Everson. Isn't she the most adorable thing you have ever seen (except maybe pictures of me as a little squirt)?

Ack! Not again with the darn cats! *grumble* This one here is a male. His name is Bastian. He's pretty cool lookin', though. He's definitely a guy's cat.

Tristen is here doin' the whole "mom" thing, teaching little Athena how to walk. And it looks like Tristen may be pregnant again. Sheesh. What is it with people and kids? Hey, don't look at me like that. I know I had 20 or so.. but those weren't /planned/ you see. Well, except the first 'n last ones.

You see? This is why I don't like kids sometimes. They can be right little monsters when they want to be! Looks like a certain little heiress needs to be put to bed.

Not without a bath first, apparently. And the maid is stuck cleaning out the cat box. Haha! Now I'm glad I didn't have a cat. No doubt that would have been my job. Yuck. Hey, maybe that's why Tristen is pregnant again.. to avoid having to clean out the cat box herself. Smart girl.

Oh, hey! One of the guys up here once showed me how to tune into the minds of those still all alive and kickin'. I've been using it to check in on the ladies I used to mingle with, just t'see if they've been missing me at all.. dreaming about me.. you know, the usual. I wonder if it'd work on cats? Let's see...

Day 237. The smallish creature - I think it may be the kitten of the Two Legs - now seems to be mobile. I shall have to keep a close eye on it.

Wait.. no! This smallish creature is more powerful than it looks! I have been captured! Tell my mate that I love her and that I'm sorry I coughed up a hairball on the bed that one night!

Oh for the love of... this is embarrassing. I hope this isn't being recorded in some way.

Finally! I am free once more! Let it be known that smallish ceratures of the Two Legs are to be avoided at all costs!

Yeah. That was.. interesting? I think I prefer checking in on the thoughts of the ladies. Let's wrap this up, shall we? Tristen finally pops out her kid, a little guy this time. They name him Cronus after some famous God or something who apparently had something to do with castration. Creepy.

There! See, wasn't that whole update made all the more interesting because of me?

You did a nice job, Dionysus. Although I suppose this means I'm not rid of you like I thought I was.

Of course not. Big D has got to keep his fans happy, you know. Especially the ladies out there.

... Right. Anywho! Sorry for the long dry spell there, folks. Between NaNoWriMo, being sick, the holidays and a lack of creativity, updating has been very difficult. But I promise to try and get the next updates out sooner. I should get an update on the Legacy's up (I'm pretty far behind on them, I think) and also an introduction to my new legacy challenge family, the McNeil's. McNeil's might come first, just because I've been playing them so much and I don't want to get too far ahead without getting a post out about them. So stay tuned! More updates are a-coming, I promise!

OOC: I'm Not Dead!

2006-11-29T04:49:21Z

Guys! I'm not dead. Honest. Don't you just hate when Real Life rears its ugly head and demands your attention? Like, GEEZ, just go away already, all you silly bills for things like electricity and cable and cell phone, and let me play video games in peace!

I haven't had much chance to play Sims.. although that could also be because what free time I HAVE had has gone to playing either Animal Crossing DS or Zelda: Twilight Princess on my new Nintendo Wii.. but I promise that I will get a few updates up soon. On the schedule:

- Everson Update

- Legacy Update

- Meet my NEWEST Legacy family (as in /so brand new/ that I just finished making them, like, 5 minutes ago), the McNeil's! Harris McNeil and his pet Dalmatian, Perdita (yeah, I'm not very original, so sue me). We'll see how things go for them. I was looking up the new Legacy Challenge rules and by golly, it seems like the whole thing has just gotten so much more complicated! But I have picked out a few handicaps for this family to follow: Patriarchy (all heirs must be male), eXtreme (which looks like the Nightlife Xtreme start I did with the Everson's), Strict Family Values (ha, and just watch me roll a bunch of Romance sims in this family *knocks on wood*), Hypochondriac (the idea of a quarantine for sick sims sounds really fun, if I were to try and work this family with more of a story) and.. Free-Roaming Ghosts, which I'm still considering if I'll actually use or not. Unlike in previous versions of the challenge, it looks like this time, if you want to get these points, you MUST keep EVERY grave you EVER get ON the lot. Which.. the ghosts on the Legacy and Everson lots are all free-roaming, but there've been a couple of graves I've had to toss because the ghosts were super pissed off about something (and in the Legacy's case, there got to be way too many ghosts for the lot to handle well). So I'm still considering that one.

So have no fear! I'm working on updates and I really, really hope that I'll be able to get them up soon and that I don't get too caught up in holiday shopping madness. Hope the rest of you are faring well so far this holiday season! :D

Legacy: Now with 70% more Pets!

2006-10-25T03:50:08Z

Hello, everyone! Been a while, I know. I got caught up with Pets.. but when I'd sit down to write an update, I'd find that I really didn't have enough pictures (or any interesting ones, anyway). Figures that when I sat down tonight I ended up with too MANY pictures!

Anyway. We'll check in with the Legacy's first, since I've been playing them more. Last we left the Legacy's, G14 had arrived.. first with Kerrigan and then Jamie. Unfortunately, I was looking for a female heir so G13 spouse, Linda, found herself pregnant again. But, here's the firstborn of G14, little Kerrigan toddling along to the boy's nursery.

And here's his younger brother, Jamie, as a toddler (held by his grandma, G12 heiress Ryven).

Kerrigan as a child in his "out to the school bus" picture. I was really eager for Pets to come about this time, so I didn't take too many pictures (I was just trying to get the family to where I wanted them when I installed the EP).

The 3rd and final G14 child arrives.. and it's the long-awaited girl! Meet G14 Legacy heiress, Kaili.

Noah - G13 heir - gets demoted. Again. I think he got demoted two or three times trying to rise up the Science career ladder. I was horribly unlucky with those stupid chance cards.

Kerrigan brings home a friend from school. Usually I send the friends home right away, since I can't stand to have extra sims around the lot to look after. But this happens to be Kerrigan's cousin, Winston (Winston's mom, Cecily, was the original G13 heir before going all glitchy on me). So I let them play and hang out for a while.

Jamie has a birthday and becomes a child.. and you can tell he's the lazy sort of sim. Just look at that slouch! That far away gaze!

And Kaili becomes a toddler. At first I'd been upset that my heir was the youngest of the three kids, as I"m usually very impatient to get to the next generation, so I'd been considering just letting Kerrigan be the heir. But Kaili came out with a lot more personality points than her two brothers (she has 30-something while I don't think they even have 25). So Kaili remains the heir. And heck, she's just too cute.

After living to be 85 - I thought he was NEVER going to die! - Grayson, the husband of G11 heiress Cashlyn - dies. Grayson had been permaplat, so he left behind a nice platinum urn.

Aha! Finally, my copy of Pets has arrived (a day late, as Amazon was short on supply and my overnight order didn't get processed in time to go out on Wednesday). The very first thing I did was mess around with Create-A-Pet making a dog for the Legacy's. Here he is.. Murphy! Murphy is a Border Collie, I just messed around with the colors and added a couple extra layers for some interesting spots and such.

And Kaili, who I have pegged to be Murphy's master, simply adores him. And I adore the toddler-dog cuddle. Could not get enough of it.

As with any real life pet, the Legacy's couldn't leave Murphy out of anything. Including watching TV.

Murphy spends a heck of a lot of time watching the world go by from the bay window at the front of the house. Seriously, he is ALWAYS there.

Kaili grows up! Here's her "off to the bus" picture. I just realized I'd never gotten one of Jamie heading off to the bus. Oops.

As soon as she gets home, Kaili takes Murphy out for a walk. Behind them you can see a now-teenaged Kerrigan doing his homework. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of that either. Doh! Kerrigan grew up well and I rolled Family for him.

Proof that dogs will eat anything: Murphy licks a puddle that he himself just created. Gross! But at least it reminded me to fill up his dog dish...

Now Jamie becomes a teen. And he rolls.. Fortune! GAH! I'm so dang tired of Fortune sims in this house. Oh, well.. at least he'll be moving out.

I spent a LOT of time annoyed at the Legacy's. I was trying to get so much done, it felt like. Linda and Noah both needed to make friends/gain skill points to get promoted, as both had LTW's to reach the top of their career fields. Not only that, but I wanted Linda to earn $100,000 for the IW point since she's a Fortune sim and Noah to max all his skills for that IW point. I try to have the kids raise Logic and Creativity points in their spare time (since painting, the piano and the chess table all raise Fun). And Ryven and Vincent (Vincent being Ryven's husband) were there to paint pictures that Linda could sell. Ryven wasn't permaplat like Vincent, and they were both nearing their deaths so I was trying to keep her in Platinum. And there was the dog to look after and train. And for some reason it seems like the sims spend a lot more time running into each other/in each others way when they're moving through the house. Maybe that's just me, though. But.. here's a picture of everyone being busy (except the dog): on the left, Ryven is on the phone trying to make a friend so someone can get promoted. Kerrigan is on the treadmill, Kaili on the chess table and Jamie on the piano. Noah is trying to earn one of his last Cooking points by watching TV. Linda is hidden behind the TV, but she's at the punching bag to earn a Body point for a promotion. And Vincent is back there working on yet another painting. Whew. @_@

Ryven and Vincent take some time out to kiss/dance/joke (all wants of Ryven's) and my G9 heiress (and one of my favorite sims ever), Sheridan, comes floating along. She's on her way to cheer for her bed.

After getting Murphy pretty well trained, it was time to introduce a new dog. And here she is.. oh. Darn dog. Gotta work on training her too. I've found that pets aren't too hard to adjust too; after you get the few basics trained, they pretty much take care of themselves and all you have to do is make sure their food bowl is filled/clean and make sure to bathe 'em every few days.

Ah, that's better. This is Delilah, a Saluki the Legacy's adopted from one of the local stores.

Delilah likes to sit in the window - which I had thought only small dogs and cats could do? - although she and Murphy are constantly challenging each other for it. Which made it a bit hard to raise their relationship with each other.

And now - finally - heiress Kaili is a teen. And she rolls.. Family! YAY! She has the LTW to marry off 6 kids, which is fine by me. I've been wanting to do the Have 10 Kids want recently.. so having 4 extra kids won't be too much of a bother. Hopefully.

Too bad you have to buy the stupid houses for the pets to make little ones. Those houses are so huge.

Noah finally reaches the top of the Science career, his LTW, so he goes permaplat! WOO! He's also the first Mad Scientist in the family, if I recall (Nery back in G4 got close, I think.. but never quite made it). After a few more days, he also maxed all his skills. Go Noah!

Ryven, G12 heiress, passes away. And the dogs mourn too! They hurried over and began to howl. SO CUTE. I'd thought Ryven's husband, Vincent, would pass away at the same time.. but the day after Ryven passed, his bar moved BACKWARDS, earning him nearly a whole 'nother week. Bah. But, I managed to get Ryven platinum before she died, so she left me a nice platinum stone.

The three G14 siblings sit down for breakfast together.. a pretty rare occurance, since all my sims seem to be on slightly different schedules.

It's really too bad someone managed to stop Delilah. Jamie really COULD have used the "my dog ate my homework!" excuse and not been lying!

A few days after the two dogs shacked up, they had a puppy (only one.. as there were 7 sims and 2 dogs in the house at the time of conception). A little female named Boreal. Puppies.. even in pixelated form they're pretty dang cute.

Kaili is the official dog caretaker, so she gets to play with the puppy first (and take her up and down the stairs at all odd hours to make sure she goes to the bathroom outside).

It's cute, OK?!

I also LOVE the custom painting feature. It's so easy! So I had one of my sims paint a picture of my cat, Spice, who I had to have put to sleep back in September.

Linda finally reaches the top of her career field also, going permaplat! She is the 3rd criminal mastermind in the family (the first was my founder's husband, Curtis, and the 2nd was G2 wife Trista.. both joined the family already in the top job spot).

And then the skunk showed up. And Kaili, who had been standing outside to greet the exterminator when he arrived - so she could tip him to get him into her relationship bar so she can call him later on, seeing as how he is her future husband - and decided she had to pet the little striped wonder.

Kaili, I really don't think he's going to let you touch him....

Yup. I was right. The heiress gets hit with skunk stench. This is why you don't pet wild animals, Kai. Just because the wolves are tame doesn't mean all the animals are, silly girl.

More puppy. And I like when sims look up at the camera.

A VERY rare occurance.. all the sims in the house sit down for a meal together. On the left are Linda, Jamie and Kaili. On the right are Vincent, Noah and Kerrigan. You can even see Delilah and Boreal in the background. Murphy is the only one not in the picture at all.. he's off to the right chewing on a bone.

This is Davey Legacy from G6 (one of heiress Janet's younger brothers). He likes to come by and steal the newspaper sometimes, for reasons I'm not aware of. Once he did so when almost all the family was standing out on the lawn, but their yelling didn't convince him to stop. Although.. this time it looks like he forgot the actual paper. Silly boy.

Boreal grows up! And man.. she got some GORGEOUS markings. A wonderful combo of her mother and father. She got Delilah's body, face, and black/gray markings, it looks like.. and then the spots and the white/cream on her undersides and legs are from Murphy. Boreal's tail is like Delilah's.. but without the fringe.

A look from her other side.

However, because I'm planning for Kaili to have 10 kids.. and because I really don't want to have to make room for a third dog bed and food dish and chew toy.. I had the Legacy's give Boreal up for adoption, and I'll adopt her into one of my satellite families. She's an awesome looking dog.. but there just won't be enough room in the house. Kaili was pretty upset, though (although she did get to meet the policewoman.. who I think I'll have to marry into the next generation).

Noah becomes an elder! And his cheeks kinda sunk in a little, giving him a slightly odd look with those flat lips of his.

Linda becomes an elder as well (and a better looking one than her husband).

This is Celeste, wife of G5 heir Orion. Celeste's always been a pretty mean-spirited.. uh.. spirit. Likes to scare everyone. She was pretty cranky in life, too. All of a sudden she's mad about some easel. I never sold your easel, you old bat! But.. this does remind me that I was going to mention that I'm probably going to get rid of a lot of the graves. I have.. 21 gravestones on the Legacy lot right now. Five or six of those are from another lot, so of course I don't have their beds anymore and they're all really cranky about it. Not only that, but the hauntings are starting to be too much. It's 3 ghosts all night, every night. So as much as I hate to do it - it's always been so cool to say that I have almost every generation represented in a grave or two on the lot - some of them are just going to have to go. So shape up, Celeste, you old badger! Or you'll be one of the ones to go!

Kerrigan becomes an adult, and from the looks of things he inherited his dad's facial features. I moved him out of the house almost right away and, because I want to get the house as empty as possible before Kaili is an adult, I have him take Jamie along with him. Jamie was only 5 days from adult himself.. but it's just one less sim I have to look after at the moment, and that makes me happy. Sorry, Jamie!

Last picture, I swear! FINALLY.. after his life bar seemed to just keep GIVING him MORE time.. Vincent passes away (he'd been permaplat too). So I've gone from 8 sims in the house.. to 7 sims and a dog.. to 7 sims and 2 dogs.. to 6 sims and 3 dogs.. and now I'm down to 3 sims and 2 dogs. And it's /so nice/. Though with Kaili only 8 or 9 days from adulthood and me planning to go for her Have 10 Kids IW, that peace won't last. But momentary peace is better than none at all!

Anyway! That's where I am. I'm enjoying Pets a ton (despite the fact that pets seem to drop actions a lot). But seeing as how everyone seems to run into each other more or complain about lack of space - even if there ARE 2 or 3 empty spaces to one side where they could move through - I think another house redesign may be in order. Blah. Not looking forward to that. XD But on a good note.. the Legacy's have finally reached $1,000,000! :D I probably would have reached it sooner, but back in the early days the Legacy's had to abandon two different lots because of the slow down bug and rebuild everything from scratch. I can't wait to start in on a new legacy challenge, though; with the Legacy's having over a million and the Everson's not too far behind, it's just so EASY. I'm more than ready to start a new family from scratch and let 'em struggle along for a while. I'll wait another week or two and if Pinstar still hasn't put out new rules by then.. I'll just go ahead and start.

But that's it for now. Hopefully this wasn't /too/ dull. It was a bit hard to go through, since quite a lot happens.. but I don't have a ton of pictures showing it all happening. Hopefully I can get an Everson update up this week too! Gotta go play them a bit more first. n_n; Later, guys!

Legacy: Family Ties

2006-10-10T06:31:10Z

Legacy Family update! Wow, actually getting TWO updates done in one night. I'm on a roll! XD Finally, I know. I wanted to get one up sooner, but when I started to go through I only had a couple of pictures. So I took a few more.. enough for a decent update, anyway. I wanted to get one last update out before Pets arrives.. my next updates won't be until I have that expansion in my hot little hands. I am SO EXICTED for Pets! But.. on to the update.

You'll recall that the original G13 heir - Cecily - went all glitchy on me. I moved her into the lot next door with her husband, Marcel. Since Cecily was supposed to have been a Family sim (she's stuck with the Grow Up aspiration, though) I was going to let her have 10 kids.. but I've sort of.. not gotten that done. Yet. So, here are a few pictures of the kids.. mostly just birth and transition shots. First up are the twins. Winston and Lizzie as toddlers.

The twins were followed by another little boy. Bradley.

And the twins as children. They look very similar. Winston has black hair and Lizzie has brown. And they're both pretty mean.. so they're hilarious to watch interact with other sims (especially each other).

And Bradley as a toddler.

I didn't know more than one sim could play with a toddler like this! So, here are Winston, Lizzie and Bradley, all playing nicely together (for the moment).

And the fourth (and final, for the moment) child, Zachary! I hadn't been paying much attention when I picked his name. Because of.. either Cecily's father or grandfather, the family last name became Taylor. It wasn't until later I realized that this little guy's full name was Zachary Taylor. Maybe little Zachary here will have a future in Politics, eh? ;D

But. Back over to the main Legacy house. Here is a shot of our new G13 heir, Cecily's younger brother, Noah. Of course, I can never even remember his name. Because of his hair, I keep wanting to call him Shikamaru. Guess I should have named him that. XD

Noah's grandfather, husband of G11 heiress Cashlyn, this is Grayson. He's just earned $100,000! And being a Fortune sim, that gets me a point for an impossible want. Woo!

Here's a closeup of Noah's wife, Linda. Who is also a Fortune sim.

G12 husband, Vincent, ages to elder.. and gets put into the Santa clothes.

I think he looks much more dashing in this outfit, though.

G12 heiress, Ryven, also becomes an elder. She is also a Fortune sim. I am so TIRED of Fortune sims!

Cashlyn passes away at only 67. Of course she HAS to go in the bedroom, which is much to cramped to fit everyone. So the scene becomes a mass of confusion and angry stomping that they are in each other's way. And Hula Girl #1 is standing IN the wall.

Yeah, Cash, you didn't live as long as I thought you would. Shocked me too! But trust me, you passing on leaves room for more people in this house.

In the end, Cashlyn's husband Grayson and her son-in-law-turned-lover Vincent mourn alone in the bedroom. As sad as it is to see them upset, I'm also greatly relieved. Finally, all the Furiousness and anger can come to a stop! Vincent and Ryven can woohoo in luxury, without having to worry about Cashlyn racing in and screaming at Vincent for cheating on her.

Linda got pregnant somewhere in here, which I'm pretty sure she hates. She's a Fortune sim with a LTW of reaching the top of her career field (Criminal) so having to take days off for maternity leave really sucks for her. She finally goes into labor.. while her in-laws have a casual conversation about the weather over a nice dinner nearby.

And G14 arrives.. with a boy! This here is little Kerrigan. Since I ended up breaking my "firstborn as heir" rule with Noah, I've decided to take Marcie's suggestion for a new method of heir picking. Every other gender for heir. I'm going to give myself a bit of leeway for G14, though. Technically, the G13 heir was female (Cecily), so G14 should be a male heir. But Cec' went all glitchy, so her brother became heir, so the G14 heir should be female. So. Since there is room in the household for 3 kids, I'm going to give myself that many chances for a female heir (neither Noah or Linda are Family sims, and I don't want the house to be too crowded, so I don't want them to have more than 3 kids). If they have all boys, Kerrigan will be heir. And starting with G15, I'll go to a more solid male/female switch between generations.

My sims don't do much home care by themselves. They've got the money for a maid and gardener and all that, so I make them spend most of their time doing productive things like painting pictures for the darn Fortune sims to sell. But Vincent gets a painting break to enjoy the great outdoors by trimming the hedge and pulling weeds (because the gardener always shows up ONE DAY before the yard needs treatment.. so they show up, say nothing needs to be done and leave.. and then starting the next day the yard begins to look like a mess and really brings down the environment score).

Because Kerrigan was a boy and I'm trying to aim for a female heir, Linda found herself pregnant again in very short order. Meaning she got to work for only one day before being forced into maternity leave again. Poor girl. She wants to work but gets to throw up instead. Fun!

Here she is getting her first bump with kiddo numero dos. I love the looks on their faces when their bumps grow. XD

Here is a lovely profile shot in which you can see that Grayson has a really funky nose (which he has passed down, darnit). And it also makes for a nice great grandfather-great grandson shot.

The slave painters! This is what most of my sims spend their time doing (especially with so many Fortune sims) in the house. Ryven is working on Noah's heir portrait.

And here's Kerrigan as a toddler.. complete with the Basil hair! :D Have I mentioned before that I love that hair? And Basil? Because I do.

Noah got demoted. Stinking chance cards! He was only on the 2nd job in the Science field so he didn't get demoted much.. but still! He has a LTW to be a Mad Scientist.. he won't get there very fast if he goes backwards.

One of the random purchases sitting around the Legacy lot, bought to appease the Fortune sims of the family. The bowling lane. And I just happened to notice it being haunted (lifted and floating off the ground) by one of the many Legacy ghosts! I don't remember who's haunting it, but the visible ghost is G4 heiress Radiance (another Fortune sim.. geez).

But, we will end this update with a snapshot of the newest G14 kid. And it is... another boy! Figures, since I was complaining about having so many female heirs before! But I remembered to do the random sim thing before he was born, so little Jamie here isn't a carbon copy of his big brother Kerrigan. He's a cute little thing, but we're looking for a girl. There's one more spot open in the family, so Linda will have to get pregnant again (poor girl.. she REALLY wants to get back to work!) and try one last time for a girl. If we strike out with another boy, Kerrigan will be the lucky kid named as heir.

This will be my last update before the release of Pets. I have paid for overnight shipping on my copy, so I should get it fairly quickly. And then all my families will get to be stuffed with pets! XD I will most likely use the cheat to allow for more sims/pets in a family.. if only because I want to be able to breed puppies and kittens, and with the 10 total limit (and most of my families almost always having 8 sims in them) that wouldn't be possible. So, expect my next updates to be filled with Pet-y goodness! And be on the lookout for the introduction of a third legacy challenge family I'll be starting once Pets arrives (I might wait 'til the news rules - if there are any - are released by Pinstar.. unless it looks like it will take ages, then I may just start the family and play them my way until the rules do come out).

'Til next time, guys. Later!

Everson: The Obituary

2006-10-10T05:18:38Z

Local casanova, Dionysus Everson, fifth generation heir of the Everson family estate, has passed away this evening. He was 76.

Over his lifetime, Mr. Everson - known as 'D' or 'Big D' to his friends - earned $100,000 at his job as an Ecological Guru. He was a Master Toy Maker with his gold toy making talent badge and he juggled 10 lovers and several best friends all at the same time. At the time of his death, Mr. Everson had 12 friends (not counting family), and 10 lovers. He had woohoo'd with a total of 11 ladies over his lifetime and got caught cheating so many times it's a wonder he didn't suffer any brain damage from all the slapping he received.

Mr. Everson was well known around town for his exploits with the ladies. It was never rare to wander by the Everson estate to see him entertaining a guest.

Something for which he was said to be very good at.

His exploits in public always drew large, cheering crowds to which Mr. Everson would grin and wave, not embarrassed in the least.

Although there always seemed to be someone in the crowd who thought his behavior was uncalled for. But by and large, Dionysus Everson was loved by all.

Mr. Everson was the first-born child to Taweret and River Everson, the first of ten children for the couple.

Though he didn't mind helping out with his younger siblings too much, Dionysus longed for freedom.. and he got it when he attended La Fiesta Tech as a Biology Major. Dionysus eventually graduated Summa Cum Laude.

After college, he returned home. As heir to the family estate, he was required to produce and heir. Though he never married, Dionysus did get engaged to the mother of his firstborn and lastborn children, Emmy Zaidi. Dionysus also had 18 other children with various women around town, including Prof. Laura Mellon and the woman his called his "one true chicky", Nancy Philippine. And, no matter how many things were said about his exploits, it couldn't be said that Dionysus wasn't a good father. He was over visiting them as often as he could, not wanting his kids - all 20 of them - to grow up not knowing their dad.

Mr. Everson's last days were spent enjoying all life has to offer. Comfortable baths...

Doing yoga on the coffee table in the wee hours of the morning...

Dinner with his daughter-in-law and grandson...

Feeding his pet cowplant, Cuddles...

And getting scared by the family ghosts, which may not sound like fun at all, but it's all a part of daily life at the Everson estate.

Girlfriend Katelyn Goss, after a wonderful dream date, made sure to leave plenty of gifts for her aging Romeo.

Including a pinball machine, which this obsessive family did NOT NEED, thank you very much Katelyn.

And although he considered himself in love with all his girls, Dionysus set aside special time for his main squeeze, Nancy.

One last party was thrown in honor of Dionysus. In attendence, aside from his son Ra, daughter-in-law Shelby and grandson Odin, were many of his girls (from front to back): Jessica Ebadi, Chris Cho, Katelyn Goss (who for some reason thought she had to sneak onto the lot), Kristen Singles, Hephaestus Everson (who is NOT one of Dionysus' girls, but in fact one of his younger brothers), Lola Singles and Chloe Singles. And of course Nancy, who was already at the house on a "date" with Dionysus.

Dionysus got several hugs from his brother, Hephaestus, who also passed along well-wishes from the rest of their siblings who had wanted very badly to attend, but unfortunately were busy with their own families.

Once the party broke up, Dionysus had time for one last fling with Nancy.

And then it was time. While his family slept, Grimmy showed up to lead Strangetown's Romeo to the great beyond, leaving behind a shiny, platinum urn.

While the family mourned later that night, Nancy would leave and return with one last gift for the departed love of her life.. yet another bunch of roses to add to his collection for a date - and a love - that was like no other she'd ever known.

And that's it, folks! Dionysus has passed. I'm actually quite saddend by it. In all my time of playing the legacy challenge, I've only ever rolled THREE Romance sims. Janina, one of the spare G2 kids of the Legacy family, who moved out of the house after becoming an adult. And Axel, the G7 heir of the Legacy family, who I kinda rushed through and moved out near the end of his adulthood. And then Dionysus. I'd never liked Romance sims before, but I was determined to play Big D to get that platinum Romance urn. And whaddaya know, the big guy grew on me. He was a heck of a lot of fun to play. Even if it was challenging to keep him in Platinum until he died! But first.. some interesting pics.

Dionysus and Nancy were coming back from a community lot. I had sent them down there because D had a want to Woohoo in Public, so he and Nancy (on a date) went out there. But I forgot to lock the want, and when they got downtown.. it had rolled away in favor of your typical dating wants. So I send them back home.. and the Woohoo in Public want shows back up! OY! And they arrived at the same time as the bus, so Nancy appeared floating out of nowhere, and then suddenly she vanished and the car drove through the bus into the driveway.

And for some reason, G6 heir Odin HATED it when he caught his granddad flirting with Nancy. Odin's daily relationship with Dionysus dropped to -5, and his relationship with Nancy went to -35/-4. I don't know why he hated it so much.

Ahem. Dionysus' party. See.. I had it all planned out. Dionysus was set to go at 6pm that night and I figured it would be great if all his girls were over so that when Grimmy came, they'd all be around crying. So I had Nancy over woohoo'ing with him so he'd be in Platinum, and they were on a date so that his wants would focus on her. I had him invite 6 of his girlfriends (plus Hephaestus) over around 3pm.. which meant that there were 7 of his girls there (including Nancy, who he was still on a date with). So they all show up and start talking. Dionysus autonomously grabbed some dinner and sat down at the table to eat. Nancy was there and they ate a few bites before she got up to go to the bathroom. All of a sudden I hear the BA-BOING! noise of someone falling out of love/losing a best friend. And Chris Cho comes over to slap Big D for cheating on her. Now.. Dionysus hadn't had any romantic interactions with Nancy yet, so I don't know HOW she figured out the cheating thing. I'm guessing it's because Dionysus and Nancy were still on a date? Anyway. The BA-BOING noise became the theme song of the night, as the girls (except Nancy) all figured out they were being cheated on and came over to slap Dionysus silly.

I figured they'd all regret their anger - man, was there a lot of stomping, glaring and flaming thought bubbles! - when 6 o'clock rolled around. But. 6pm came, went and Dionysus was still among the living. The party ended (badly, of course.. because of all the Furious-ness) and everyone left. I figured Dionysus would go sometime during the night, and I just PRAYED he would still be in platinum.. or at least wait until the next morning (all of his wants revolved around other people, and since it was late, I couldn't have him call them/invite them over). The next day I had him invite Nancy over first thing, and they woohoo'd and kissed to keep him in platinum. 6 o'clock rolled around again.. STILL nothing! It wasn't until after more woohoo and one last kiss that Grimmy finally showed up and I was just happy because it meant no more worrying trying to keep Dionysus in platinum.

Such was my adventure in Dionysus' death. It was a blast (especially all the girls slapping him.. it was HILARIOUS). I'm gunna miss the big guy, though. But.. now that he's gone, I can focus on young Odin, who needs a girl because before too long it'll be his turn to produce an heir. And, of course, Pets is almost here.. and surely the Everson's will need some pets to keep them entertained, now that dear ol' Grandpa D isn't around. :D

The Legacy update IS coming. I hadn't had enough pictures for my liking before, but I think I've got enough now. Expect an update sometime. Before Pets comes out. I promise. XD; 'Til next time, guys! Later!

Everson: The Good Life

2006-10-03T06:06:43Z

It's time to leave the Legacy's in peace for a moment and check in on my other legacy family, the Everson's of Strangetown.

Hellllllloooooo, ladies! Didja miss me? didja?

Dionysus...

Hey, chicky lady. I do the commentary on my family, remember? And it's Big D.

Only too well. Fine, fine.. but keep it CLEAN, Dionysus.

Clean, schmean.

Dionysus...

Fine! Clean! Sure! Geez. Women are so darn picky. Ahem! Hellllloooo, ladies! It's Big D here, ready to catch you up with the goings on in my family. Now it's ben a while, so please excuse Big D if he forgets some details. Memory ain't what it used to be (but everything else still works just as good! I promise!).

Let's see. Ah, here's a good picture. That's my old honey, Prof. Laura. She came over to visit one day - 'cause the ladies, they can't have enough of Big D - and before I could warn her, she'd gone out to Cuddles, my cowplant. Poor ol' Cuddles was hungry and.. well.. Prof. Laura was a willing dinner. She haunts around now and she ain't too happy about being dead. Or maybe it's 'cause she can now see all the girls I have over. Ah, well. Spooks don't spook me.

And here I am! Dang, aren't I a stud? Lookit that confidant strut. No wonder the ladies love me!

Here's my dad, haunting for the very first time. I think he was shocked to learn that he was dead. But he's happy that we still have his bed and that he has a wonderful platinum grave.

Oh.. uh.. yeah. This chick - what was her name again? - caught me gettin' all romantical with one of my main girls. She was none too happy 'bout it either.

Bet you're wondering who that stately, sexy primetime hunk is, eh? Well, ladies.. that is yours truely. Yes indeed, Big D has come to the golden years. And boy.. are they ever! I was a bit worried what the local chicks would think about me, now that I've got the silver locks and all.. and they totally dig it! They say I am "wise and experienced." Boy, am I!

This is my boy - my OLDEST boy, anyway, as I have 20 kids - Ra. He's at college, staying in the same dorm room - the Boom Boom Room - that I did. Handsome devil, ain't he? Could win over any girl with just a smile. But he's more of a learnin' sort, always got his nose buried in some book.

Yeah, Ra didn't inherit my natural talent with the ladies. Honestly, son, goofy faces are no way to win a girl over...

.. Or, maybe it is. Guess I'll have to try that one!

Though he could have had any girl, as many girls as he wanted, Ra wanted only one. Her name is Shelby and she has been our grocery delivery girl for a while. Now it looks like she's gunna be my daughter-in-law. She's one hot little momma. Why, I bet I could... wait. Is it OK to think such things about my future daughter-in-law? It's not incest or something, is it? Hrm. Might be better if I just shove those thoughts elsewhere. Just to be safe.

Smart idea, Dionysus.

Thanks! Anyway. Here he is. Ra Everson. Graduacted with a 4.0 GPA. That's my boy!

I'll tell ya. I never thought I was the type to enjoy being a father, but I've really loevd havin' my kids. Especially Ra. Man, he's such a smart kid. Can't believe he's mind sometimes. I'm just insanely proud of him. And on that day, I let him know it.

'Course, I couldn't let the boy go thinking that he was smarter than his old man. So I impressed him with my advanced formula for figurin' out the size of a woman's.. er.. assests.. just by glancing at 'em. He didn't seem to impressed, but I think he was just shocked that his dear ol' dad was so incredibly wise.

Man, I can't go out in public with a lady anymore without another one slapping me silly! It's starting to get a lil' rough on the old noggin.

This old bat just took it too far! She must've had a hundred cans of cat food in that dusty purse!

Ah, this is my little princess, my youngest munchkin, Bast. She's absolutely gorgeous, but she was always worried about acne and the like. I could never pry her away from that mirror!

And here she is, all grown up. Gosh, where does the time go? Seems like only yesterday I was fixin' her bottles.

And here's Ra, fresh home from college. He brought Shelby with him and they were married in a small ceremony in the backyard.

Hey! HEY! Who is that jerk sucking on my baby girl's face?! Who is he?! I want to know where that punk lives so I can bash in his face!

Dionysus.. Bast IS an adult, you know. By the time YOU were her age, you had already been with---

HEY! So? This is HER, not me. Bast is my baby and there is no man good enough for her! NONE! *muttergrumblefume*

Here are Shelby and Bast, some time later. Both are pregnant. Shelby by Ra, of course. I don't know what monster knocked my baby girl up, but when I get my hands on him he'll wish he'd never been born! That lousy, good-for-nothin'...

Ahem. While Dionysus rants and raves, I'll let you all know that Bast is pregnant from alien abduction. I downloaded a hack that allows females to get pregnant from that as well as the males. But I'm not giving myself a point for an alien baby, since it's a cheat.

I'm cool. I'm cool. Honest. Anyway.. this is my first grandchild. My grandson, Odin. Look how small he is! I can't even describe how much I love him. He's amazing. The son of my son. What a concept.

And this is my granddaughter, Bellona. I'll admit to being a bit.. er.. stand-off-ish during Bast's pregnancy, but the arrival of this big-eyed beauty made me forget about killing the entire male population of Strangetown for the moment. Isn't she precious? And she loves her granddad.

Odin, learning how to walk already. I almost wish he could have stayed a baby for a while.. but watching Ra and Shelby try to handle a hyperactive toddler was way too much fun.

Me? It's a grandpa's job to be the fun one, you know. So while they deal with the dirty diapers and screaming at 4am 'cause the kid wants ice cream for breakfast, I get to toss him in the air, give piggyback rides and play with trucks. I love bein' a grandpa!

Just a picture to remind me to say that Bast, a Knowledge sim, maxed all her skills, giving me a point for that. Woo!

Bast and Shelby get along great together. They act just like sisters. Shelby was teachign the family pet brick, Brickston, how to sit. She was so proud when he finally learned to do it - took 2 whole weeks of training! - that she had to show off the trick to Bast. But Bast doesn't get what's so great about it. She just doesn't understand how hard bricks are to train.

Odin, growing up fast. He's a cute kid.. but he loves to prank you. I finally had to direct all his energy into painting because I wasn't sure I could survive another static shock.

Kids these days have such fun toys. Bellona sure seems to enjoy this sit'n'spin thing. Everytime I asked her to let her ol' grandad have a turn, she'd just laugh. That kid needs to learn how to share.

Bellona, a bit older. She's got some odd features, her small, pinched nose and such, but those big dark eyes are wonderful. The boys are going to fall hard for her someday.

Odin and Bellona get along great. Two peas in a pod, those kids. Although Odin has this crazy thing where he likes to watch TV standing on his head. Ra was never too happy about it, though, since he was tryin' to learn new recipies off that Eatin' Channel.

Another reminder pic.. Ra, another Knowledge sim, also maxed all his skills. Yay!

Shelby is all ticked off at Weird Blond Guy because he came over and shoved her. I hate that guy too. He's so rude! Always stealing our newspaper and knocking over our trashcan. I hope a satellite falls on him.

Dionysus!

What? I do.

Poor little Bell'. That kid is a bit weird. She would never go get into her bed of her own accord. I'd always find her curled up on a couch somewhere and I'd have to carry her to bed myself. She was always cranky if she tried to sleep in the great room.. her Uncle Ra was always turning on the stereo when she was trying to sleep.

ARG! Come on, Ra, move it! An old man's bladder ain't what it once was.. I can't make it all the way across the house! Hurry it up!

These grandkids of mine got some weird genes. They'll randomly stop playing.. to CLEAN. Geez. Sometimes I have to force them to stop cleaning and go play outside.

Yup. Big D's still got it. Oh yeah!

Prof. Laura the Spook again. That's our daughter, Morgan, she's thinking about. She must be angry 'cause when she died here, Morgan and our son, Marty, were left alone, 'cause I obviously couldn't bring 'em to live here. Don't know why she's so bent out of shape.. my brother Atlas moved in to care for the kids and they love him to pieces.

I'm still holdin' down the same job. 'Cause I still look good in nothing but a leaf and figure I better flaunt it while I got it while I still can.

Kristen came over to visit me 'cause I'd invited her over. But instead of walking like a normal person, she came up all sneaky-like. That girl has always been a little weird. But she kisses like no one else!

My grandson, Odin, as a teenager. He's all into doing whatever it is at the time that pleases him. Ah, well.. at least he's not another bookworm like his dad. And chicks dig freckles, so he should do real well with the ladies. Oh. By this time, Bast and Bellona had moved out. With Odin approaching adulthood, they figured they wouldn't enjoy the house getting more crowded here in a few years when Odin has to bring home a wife and all. They live just down the street and stop by all the time.

Well, I s'pose I'll leave you all with this picture. Big D, still a stud after all these years! Check out that physique! *sigh* Though, you know, just between you and me.. Big D is startin' to feel a bit worn out. I've had a wonderfully full life. Had lotsa chicks, 20 kids, 2 grandkids, a great job. I gotta wonder what else there is to do. Ah.. why worry about it, right? Big D doesn't need to worry about anything! .. Just don't tell my ladies what I mentioned, eh? If they thought I was getting worn out and tired, they might stop coming over.. and nobody wants that.

'Til next time, Big D out!

Ladies.. I'm not doing anything tonight. If you wanna stop by... *eyebrow waggle*

Dionysus! .. Ugh. There's just no living with him sometimes. Anyway! That's it for this update. Hope y'all enjoyed it, and I apologize if Dionysus offended any of you. That boy... *sighs, shakes head* Stay tuned for a Legacy update coming soon! And not too much longer 'til Pets is out. :D I've got my preorder in, should get it the 18th. I CAN'T WAIT! :D

Sims 2 Pets

2006-09-29T20:07:25Z

I just put in my pre-order of Sims 2 Pets. :D I hadn't planned on pre-ordering - 2-day and overnight shipping is just so expensive, and if I ordered online and took the standard 5-10 business day shipping, even by then the stores here would have it - but I just happened to visit Amazon.com today and I had been selected for a free 3-month trial for their Amazon Prime thing. That meant 2-day shipping was free, and overnight shipping only $4! :D So I went with the overnight shipping. I know some people have complained about pre-ordering Sims from Amazon in the past, but I've never had any trouble with them whatsoever, so I'm hoping my luck holds. n_n

I am SO EXCITED for Pets that it's not even funny. I LOVED Unleashed, and to have the pets be more.. realistic.. this time around, I'm just dying to get a hold of this game. The little puppies and kittens are so adorable, and watching the videos of some of the interactions between pets and sims is delightful. I kind of wish they were including more in the expansion - new clothes and hair styles for the sims themselves are always nice - but I guess you can't have it all. I've been debating getting Family Fun Stuff and Glamour.. but I hate paying the price for stuff that you can find for free up for download on MTS2 or whatever that is just as nice, if not better.

An update is on the way (I'm a fan of the Pokemon games, and some new ones were just released in Japan, so I've been distracted checking up on all the new information), most likely with my other challenge family, the Everson's (who are on G6). Things are moving along in the Legacy's too (G14 has arrived! :D), so hopefully a new update on them won't be too far away either. :)

Legacy: These are the Days

2006-09-24T01:24:00Z

All settled in my new apartment and such, and I've been able to find plenty of time to play Sims (thanks to staying up late the first couple of nights to try and calm down my cat, Rizzo, who didn't handle the move as well as I'd thought he would).

But! The Legacy's. Last we left them, the 3rd child of G13, a little boy named Finn, had just been born, making for quite a full house. Here's our heiress, Cecily, just home from school (the one facing away from the camera). I dunno who the other little girl is, but no matter what Cecily tried to do - hug her, play with her, anything! - the girl got all ticked off and declined the action. Stupid kid!

Here is G13's middle kid, Noah.. fresh from a toddler transition. Cute little squirt, isn't he?

There are a TON of graves sitting out on the Legacy lot, so every single night about 3 ghosts haunt. Here we can see G4 heiress, Radiance, floating by the car.. while G2 heir, Lucas, complains in the background that his bed isn't on the lot (I'd originally had to abandon the lot Lucas had been born in.. and since it was before Nightlife and the backpack feature, his bed was lost. After Nightlife came out, I went back to the lot and recused all the grave stones, so all those ghosts whine about their beds all the time).

Before school, Noah doesn't look too happy that he has to give his sister a hug (or a kiss.. I forget which).

Noah, in his "going out to the school bus" picture.

G12 heiress, Ryven, takes a break from painting to teach her youngest son, Finn, how to talk. Smart milk aided, of course!

I'm a sucker for watching the sim kids sleep. They're so CUTE! Here's Cecily fast asleep. Probably not for long, though, since the ghosts love to pop in and scare the living daylights out of the poor girl.

I'm not the only one who loves little Noah. Cashlyn could have cared less about her other grandkids.. but she was always rolling up wants about Noah! So here they cuddle a little on the couch.

Vincent and Noah play Paper, Rock, Scissors. After Vincent wins, the does a little celebratory dance that I found highly amusing.

But it's not all fun and games and cuddles around this house! Whenever the adults aren't working, I have them cranking out paintings for Grayson (Cashlyn's husband) to sell in hopes of having him reach his "Earn $100,000" want. Here is Noah, working on raising his creativity by playing the piano (and breaking it. Every. Single. Time. He got off of it).

Cecily is off painting.

And little Finn is learning how to walk.

The maid. Oh, how we hate the maid around the Legacy household. She is only kept around because without her, the house would very quickly become a garbage dump. Ryven was in the shower when the maid came in to clean the toilet. She flushed it.. which scorched Ryven in the shower. So she got out to yell at the maid.. who seemed to not care, and just went about her business of cleaning the toilet.

And here begins the training toilet obsession. I only managed to catch a few pictures.. but for some reason it seemed like everytime I turned around, SOMEONE was thinking or talking about that dang toilet!

Ryven and Vincent at the table, being all flirty. I love the look on Vincent's face as he "catches" the kiss that Ryven blew at him.

And the look on Ryven's face after having been fed a bite by Vincent. And yes, there is still a whole load of furiousness going on in this house. Vincent and Cashlyn are always thinking about each other or cheating with a bunch of flames. I'm hoping it calms down soon!

I thought it was amusing that Grayson seems to turn to look at his granddaughter, Cecily, who is about to transition to a teenager, when he starts to talk about woohoo. "One day they're just little babies.. the next thing you know, they know how babies are really made and stop believing my stork stories!"

A freshly transitioned Cecily smiles up at the camera.

And here she is, post makeover. Her aspiration was SUPPOSED to be Family, but.. well, I'll explain that later.

Here's Cecily off at college, having a bit of a liason with Charles Whats-His-Name. I really hope she's staring at his shoes...

There's that toilet again. Cecily talking to.. uh.. I forget his name. I almost hooked her up with him, though.

Hey, look! It's one of the kids from G5, Xena! Xena was the alien daughter of Nery, who was married to G4 heiress Radiance. Xena (and her twin brother, Xizor, and her half-sister Deirdre) are all stuck at college because I shoved 'em all off to college to be rid of them and, like my satellite houses, I forgot about 'em. I feel bad for them now, seeing as how I'm on G13. I may have to move 'em out and play with 'em a bit.. especially seeing as how Xena looks like she wants a baby.

I liked this picture. There's Cecily and that is her boyfriend, Marcel. I tend to HATE playing sims through university, and this si one of the reasons why. Cecily was in dire need to raise her social bar.. but she walked all the way across the dorm to kiss Marcel, and he started walking off! He had to go off to class or something. She walked after him for a moment or two and then stopped. This happened several times.. I'd try to have her interact with a sim, only for them to be going off to do something else and Cecily would waste time wandering after them for a bit. Argh! But.. at least it makes for a good picture.

Cecily and Linda. Cecily had influenced Linda to write her term paper for her, and afterwards they became fast friends.

Back at the house.. the family thinks Cashlyn is going crazy. I don't blame them. I mean, look at her! She talks to herself!

A quick shot of the layout of the house. So much nicer than the last one (no one spends an hour getting across the house!). This is the first floor. The 3rd master bedroom and 2nd main bathroom I added later.. and I was too lazy to retake the pictures. XD And the living "room" isn't really a room.. just a raised section with a wall for the TV to hang on.

And this is the second floor.

And here's a shot of the outside. I suck at building houses, so it looks a bit wonky.. but it works for me!

Noah and Finn - who is now a child - play before school. Paper, Rock, Scissors.. and this time Noah wins!

Finn gets his brother back by giving him a static shock. I'd never seen that before and I loved the interaction. The boys loved it too.. they kept laughing and shocking each other.

Finn heading off to the school bus.

Finn and Ryven. There's that toilet again...

Noah getting back into bed after having been scared by one of the ghosts. The ghosts love the second floor.

Here is Edward, the first husband of G3 heiress, Tina. Edward likes to raid the fridge and complain about his bed. He's one of the nastier ghosts.. always scaring someone!

Cashlyn broke the shower so her husband, Grayson, lectured her. She looked so sad! I felt so horrible for her.. it wasn't her fault, stupid faulty plumbing!

<

This is Trista, the wife of G2 heir, Lucas. Trista was killed by a satellite.. and I was always happy that I got that ghost color so early.

Noah is a teen! A Knowledge teen! A hunky Knowledge teen!

Those darn ghosts. I don't check up on the second floor too much (the kids only are up there to sleep, really) but I popped up there when I noticed that Finn wasn't in bed. He'd been scared by one of the ghosts and was so tired he simply passed out right there on the floor. Poor kid.

And here my poor picture taking skills really shows - after several months away, it's hard to get back in the habit! - because Finn is now a teen (a Knowledge teen just like Noah.. because apparently it isn't enough that they look the same and have the exact same personality points). By this point, his older brother Noah is already at college. So Finn ventures off to college too.

Because of reasons I'll explain at the end, Cecily could not be the heiress. I felt bad for her, so I had her move to her own house right next door to the main house. She and Marcel got married. She got pregnant and then...

It was TWINS. /TWINS/! Arg! Twins don't bring any points unless they're to bring in the 10th generation (or, in my case, 20th).. but still. I love twins and they're so much fun to have in the main house. Darn! But, oh well. Here is Marcel with the girl, Lizzie.

And Cecily with the little boy, Winston. Lizzie has brown hair and brown eyes, and Winston has black hair and brown eyes. I was hoping for some light hair for a change.. but at least the brown eyes are a change from the many, many pairs of green eyes I've had in recent generations.

Back at the main house, Noah, now the G13 heir, moves back from college (neither he or Cecily graduated.. I really only have them go to meet future spouses). Noah's fiance, Linda (the girl who did Cecily's term paper once), moves in too and they both get married. And it seems that before too long, we'll be hearing the pitter patter of little feet in the house once more. Generation 14 is on the way!

So, in the main house now we have:
Cashlyn, G11 heiress, Family. Will die next time I play.
Grayson, Cashlyn's husband, Fortune. Working towards "Earn $100,000" IW.
Ryven, G12 heiress, Fortune. 3 days from elder.
Vincent, Ryven's husband, Popularity. 3 days from elder.
Noah, new G13 heir, Knowledge.
Linda, Noah's wife, Fortune. These Fortune sims are going to drive me crazy. @_@
--

Now. About Cecily. I was originally going to have this whole big storyline with Cecily and Noah and end in a "vote for the heir!" kind of thing. But when Cecily became a teen, I was never asked to pick her aspiration. So she kept a "Grow Up" aspiration. I sent her off to college.. where she got a memory of "Grew Up Badly" after turning into a Young Adult, even though she was in Platinum. And then, throughout her entire stay in college, her aspiration meter never would drop. It stayed in platinum.

Even though I'm not really playing a legacy challenge with these guys anymore - just playing legacy "style", sort of keeping track of points, but not really.. and not being super strict about any of the rules (nevermind that the rules seem to change everytime I go look them up) - I figured that would be an unfair advantage, her being in platinum all the time. And since she still had the "Grow Up" aspiration (and still does), I couldn't get any points from her for anything. So I made the decision to not keep her as heiress, going with Noah instead.

So I decided to move Cecily and Marcel to their own house. Cecily's platinum "unstuck".. but even in green aspiration, she got a memory for having "Grown Up Badly". Once at the house, the grave she had in her backpack (which was Dallas' grave, but since he is a Drowned ghost and I don't like the puddles, I had someone always carrying his grave stone) was NOT Dallas'. Dallas' was sitting by the mailbox the first time I loaded the lot. The grave in Cecily's backpack just said "Rest in Peace."

So she's still glitchy. I didn't bother trying to look up what could be wrong online or how to fix it.. I was too eager to get to the next generation and Noah was there and waiting. I was upset when Cecily had twins, because it would have been nice to have twins at the main house again, but Noah gives me a chance to have a MALE heir after so many females. And, since my "the first born will be heir!" rule has been broken (12 generations is a decent run, I'd say!) I may choose another way to determine the heir from this point out. We shall see. But that is why Cecily is no longer the heiress.

Legacy: You Could Cut the Tension With a Knife!

2006-09-18T05:54:34Z

I'm BAAAAACK! Well, for now, anyway. I was going to wait until I got Pets before getting back into my sims, but I ended up having the worst kind of week ever (from mourning for Steve Irwin, to recalling events of Sept 11th, having my 13-year old cat put to sleep on Sept 11th of this year - that was HORRID - and being in the middle of moving where NOTHING is going right) I decided I needed a break from reality and so stepped into the wacky world of The Sims.. and the even wackier world of my first legacy family.. the Legacy's.

Last we left the Legacy's, they were on Generation 12.. heiress Ryven was a child and her younger brother, Dallas, had just been killed in a freak pool ladder vanishing accident. To cope with the loss, Ryven's parents - G11 heiress Cashlyn and her husband, Grayson - had another child, another little boy they named TJ. Here's the little sprocket with his big sister, Ryven.. now an adult.

Ryven had gone to college for a bit, but dropped out due to lack of interest in her studies (and my own lack of interest in her). But while at college she met a handsome boy named Vincent and she quickly fell in love with him, got engaged, brought him back to the Legacy mansion, married him and got pregnant. Before they knew it, generation 13 of the Legacy family had arrived in the form of a little girl they named Cecily. Who, may I add, is the /5th female heir in a row/ for the family. I'm really hoping G14 will have a male heir.. there are so many nice looking female NPCs and townies out there!

Here's TJ as a kid. Cute little bloke, is he not? Unfortunately, his parents have a constant fear of him drowning like his now deceased older brother, Dallas, and even though he constantly rolls up wants to go swimming.. he isn't allowed. He isn't even allowed to take a bath.. showers only for this little boy!

G13 heiress, Cecily, with her mommy.

And here is Cecily with her grandpa Grayson, who enjoyed tossing her in the air (except when she'd throw up on him).

Before I knew it.. Cashlyn became an elder (and her twin sister, Paris, still comes by the house.. still all nice and young looking because I don't play her satellite house). She celebrated her golden anniversary and became permaplat!

Grayson became an elder too. AND he would reach the top of the Sport career, earning him permaplat too!

Cecily becomes a child and hangs out on the couch with her uncle TJ.

Wanting to have another child around, Ryven and Vincent - yes, I have a picture of him in this update, forgive me.. I was sucky when it came to taking pictures - had another child. Again, the second born is a boy. Little Noah.

Cecily in her "first day of school/in front of the house on the way to the bus" picture.

Somewhere in here I paused the game, tore the entire house down and rebuilt it. The previous one was just TOO BIG. Way too much empty space and the sims just spent all their time walking across the house. I like the new layout MUCH better. I didn't take any pictures of it - doh! Next update, I promise! - but in this shot of Ryven, you can see the little kitchen area and part of the raised living room.

Ryven is pregnant again! Here she is, all excited and awed to get her first bump. While Vincent snores happily in the background.

She needs to use the bathroom, so I direct her to go to the toilet.. and she preceeds to run PAST the bathroom, all the way upstairs to the second floor bathroom to vomit. And then she goes BACK downstairs to use the downstairs toilet. Sims, sheesh!

About this time, the HATE began to fill the house. See, I didn't think in-laws could have romantic interactions with each other. I'd always thought one they married into the family, the options of "Family Kiss" were the ones available. But.. I guess not. I turned away for one second, only to come back to Cashlyn and Vincent (Ryven, Cashlyn's daugher's, husband) doing a Romantic Hug. They each IMMEDIATELY developed a crush (it might've been red hearts for love though, but I can't remember). So. Grayson immediately got furious at Cashlyn for cheating on him.. and at Vincent for being all romantic with Cashlyn. He slapped both of them. Then Vincent was furious at Grayson for slapping him. Well, later I had Vincent and Ryven go off and woohoo.. and Cashlyn and Grayson go off and woohoo (they all needed a social raise) forgetting about the Furiousness. Cashlyn got mad at Vincent for "cheating" on her.. and Vincent was mad at Cashlyn for "cheating" on him! And to top it all off, little Noah became a toddler and was Furious with Cashlyn for slapping Vincent.. and Cecily was crying because Vincent was "cheating" on Ryven! They all STILL get pissed off at each other and it makes it really hard for the two couples to be romantic with each other.. because someone inevitably gets re-Furious and there is much slapping. Oh.. and I can't leave Cashlyn and Vincent without supervision for too long, because they have tried to do romantic actions to each other (especialyl flirting and romantic hugs). So.. here are pictures of some of the hatred.

Noah! As a toddler! Surviving the massive hatred filling the house! Of course, I forgot to roll the pacifier between kids, so Noah is a carbon copy of his sister Cecily. Doh! Oh. And somewhere in here Ryven's little brother, TJ, became a teen and moved away to college. Bye, TJ!

The only two people in the house who aren't furious at anyone.. Cecily and her mom, Ryven. Here they are enjoying a meal after Cecily has returned home from school.

Cecily blowing bubbles! I hadn't known they could do that! SO VERY CUTE.

And here is Ryven and Vincent's third child, another little boy named Finn. And since I forgot to roll the pacifier AGAIN.. he is a carbon copy of his two siblings looks-wise.. and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets the carbon copy of the personality points as well. Doh!

So that's where the Legacy's stand at the moment. Another female heir, carbon copy kids, lots and lots of hate. The hate is funny, but also annoying to work around when they are wanting romantic interactions with their spouses. If I'm not careful, slap fests do occur. It's too bad Cashlyn is an elder.. I had been going to have her and Vincent have a baby together to cause more DRAMA.. but as an elder, she cannot have a baby. So sad! But.. I doubt the Legacy's are in need of too much more drama. n_n; Anyway! It's been fun visiting my Legacy's again. Here's hoping I can keep up regular updates until Pets comes out (and beyond). :D

The Slump!

2006-04-29T17:10:53Z

Hey guys! Sorry for lack of updates, but it seems I have fallen into a Sims Slump. I've sat down to play a couple of times, but I always lose interest before the game has even finished loading. I'm hoping they'll announce the next expansion pack soon, because OFB just wasn't all that interesting to me and didn't keep me hooked for more than a couple days at best. I'm DYING to have pets again - the Legacy's and Everson's NEED dogs and cats running around - so I know that would spark my interest in a heartbeat - but it's just kind of a wait and see thing right now, I guess.

Until then, I'm eagerly awaiting E3 and to get word on some other games I am really looking forward to (Zelda: Twilight Princess, Spore, Pokemon, etc). And maybe they'll let slip a couple of details about the next EP at E3.

Everson: Death!

2006-02-25T01:22:06Z

Sorry, but this will lack my usual creative enthusiasm (dang flu!) and so no Dionysus commentary this time. Again, sorry, but I don't know how long it'll be 'til I get to play Sims again and I want to get these pictures posted before I forget why I took them, lol.

We'll start with.. a death! I had planned on Emmy to die by cow plant after she got me the Culinary career reward. But by the time she'd done that, Professor Laura Mellon had visited and got eaten by the cow plant (by complete accident). So, I decided Emmy would die some other way to earn me a different ghost color. I decided she'd be a secret fire worshipper. But my founder, Isis, had other ideas.. and she came along and scared Emmy to death. Oh well! Not what I was going for, but I didn't have a Scared ghost yet.

Poor Bast.. she was so devestated at her mother's death.

OK. I had enclosed Emmy in a no-door room to go to her firey grave. Everything caught fire, but she was scared to death. The fire department came.. but the fire guy, Weldon, couldn't reach it. So he ran around the lot the whole evening, trying to get to the fire. Then another fire guy shows up (Dorian) and HE runs around the lot all evening too, because HE can't get to the fire either. So I had to wait for the fire to burn itself out.. and, of course, I couldn't go into build/buy mode so I couldn't get rid of all the couches/games/large fountains that Fortune Emmy had wanted before I killed her off. So with all that junk, the fire and two insane NPCs running around on the lot.. my game was running a bit slow for a while. The fire finally burned itself out sometime around 7am.

The Everson family repairman.. EVERY TIME he comes over to repair something electrical.. he electrocutes himself.

OK. River. A Knowledge sim. He'd maxed all skills, earning me 1 IW point. I needed him to die in Platinum so I could get a Knowledge urn. Well, about two days before his death, he was in low green aspiration. He had stupid wants like 'Call ___ to Chat'.. which only gets a sim 100 aspiration points (hardly anything, really)... Win A Game Against ___ (and he always lost). He also had a want to 'Make a Zombie' with Emmy's picture there, which was hilarious, but I didn't have the resurecto-thingy. It was a Friday, and he rolled up wants of "Bast gets an A+" and "Ra grows up well". Bast had a C+ and wouldn't go to school until Monday, so that was out. Ra was scheduled to grow up on Sunday, but I didn't think River would live long enough for that want to be fulfilled. So I had him go for those piddly "Call Atlas to Chat" wants, which got me nowhere. Finally, after talking with Hecate on Sunday morning, he wanted to Tickle Hecate. So I invited Hecate over and his wants remained pretty much the same, but one Want slot focused on Hecate.. rotating between "Play/Tickle Hecate", "Entertain/Tell Joke to Hecate" and "Appreciate Hecate". I did all that until he was in mid-Platinum, then I bought the cheapest bed possible and sent him to bed since his energy was low, hoping he'd sleep 'til 6pm. He woke up just a minute or two before 4pm.. aspiration slipped lower. By the time he'd gone to the bathroom and gotten to the phone, it was nearly 5. He spun up 3 "Call __ to Chat" wants and I did all those, but they hardly moved anything and 6pm approached. He spun up a "Quit Job" want, so I had him do that. 6pm hit just as the "Are you sure you want to quit your job?" box popped up,, and River's aspiration slipped from a sliver of Platinum to gold. I clicked "yes" on the popup box, his aspiration rose into /just barely/ platinum... and then Grimmy showed up. YES! I /really/ wish those "Call ___ to Chat" wants were worth more than 100 aspiration.. that's hardly anything, making fulfilling those wants hardly worth it unless your sim is in the red.

That same night, Ra aged into a teen. A /hunky/ teen! Alas, no aspirations of Romance for him. Ra is a Pleasure sim.

Dionysus ventured downtown on a date with some chick the matchmaker set him up with. And as they went to slow dance, Kristen Singles (the mother of two of D's kids) came running over and slapped D silly. Twice. oops!

Funnily enough, Kristen didn't run over to slap him after he and whats-her-face woohoo'd in the photo booth. But they drew a decent-sized crowd.

Taweret had a want to throw a party.. and even though she didn't need it (she's been Permaplat for a while).. I indulged her. They had quite a turnout too. That's Atlas back in the bathroom. Bast is watching everyone play kicky bag. Claire McClellan (tan red-head) he bartender playing kicky bag with Kristen Singles, Taweret and Alcyone. Shelby Zaidi (delivery woman) in the blue. Epione on guitar and Hephaestus on piano. The only ones not pictured are Dionysus (who is out on the telescope) and Ra, who was sent to college.

A few days later, Taweret comes home from her job as a Visionary and does her OMG HAPPY DANCE OF LIFE...

... And then Grimmy shows up for her. She was Permaplat when she died, so another pretty urn for me. Everyone was sad.. except Dionysus, who was to busy staring at the hula girls (go figure, eh?).

And that same night, Bast goes teen! Gorgeous thing, isn't she? No Romance sim for her either. Bast is a Knowledge sim. And since she and Dionysus are the only two left in the house, I decided that Bast will probably remain in the house for a while, even after Ra comes back from college. She can max all her skills and get me another IW point.

Emmy haunted for the first time that night. I thought it was funny that she haunts in her cow uniform.. since I'd changed her into regular clothes and hairstyle when she first moved into the house.

Cuddles is happy that Dionysus likes cow plant milk. And now D has more time to scan the skies for alien life.

And that's it! It is /really/ weird having only 2 sims in the house.. Dionysus and Bast. Taweret, River and Emmy have all died and Ra is off at college. When I have time to play again, I'm going to play the main house a bit to try and get Dionysus abducted and aged to elder.. and then I'll hop over to college to play through Ra's college years before bringing him back home. He has 2 options I'm looking at for his future wife.. so I guess we'll see what happens!

Legacy: The Slump

2006-02-25T00:39:48Z

This is all the Legacy's are up to anymore.. painting. Not that they need the money or anything, though.

And the main reason why I haven't played the Legacy's too much lately.. Sheridan (G9 heiress) finally died and it just made me SO SAD! I've been attached to sims before, but for some reason she was just special. Whether her personality was real.. or whether she was just like every other sim and I just 'assigned' her a personality.. she was just a very cool sim and very expressive. Sheridan was a Popularity sim and was the firstborn of 10 kids. I'm pretty sure she died in Platinum but I'm too lazy to actually go check (which just goes to show how long it's been since I checked in with the Legacy's). I'm gunna miss you, Sheri! <3

Not too long after Sheridan's death, the G12 kids had their birthday. Armando (married to G9) is holding Ryven, the G12 heiress. And Cashlyn (G11 heiress) is holding the youngest member of G12, Dallas.

Ryven as a child.

Dallas as a toddler.

Ryevn waking up in the middle of the night. Dunno why, but I thought this was a cute picture.

Armando follows his wife into death a day or two later. I forget if he died in Platinum or not. I'll check in on the family one of these days and see, lol!

Dallas as a child.

The Legacy family ghosts.. there are quite a few by this point (almost 20).. make every night Halloween. Here, someone has just spooked Dallas, also waking Ryven.

Dallas and Ryevn pose for a picture. Forgot to roll the pacifier between their births, so they're pretty much identical.

Sheridan haunts!

Hunter (the twin brother to G5 heir, Orion) comes along to steal the Legacy's paper for some odd reason. He's not furious with anyone that I know of. Maybe he's just mad that he wasn't chosen as heir and has lived many, many, many years beyond what is reasonable thanks to the fact that I rarely play satellite houses.

Ryven is a teen! And.. I forget what her aspiration is. x_o; It MAY be Popularity or Pleasure. I forget.

In an unfortunate pool ladder incident, Dallas drowns in the pool. Because I needed a blue ghost.

Grimmy is about tired of these Legacy's and their deaths.

Anyway! As you can see, I've reached a point where I am bored to tears by the Legacy's. I think it's because none of the current family members interest me the way Sheridan did (or the way Taweret, Dionysus and Ra do at the Everson's house). I sent Ryven off to college and killed off Dallas to try and spark my interest with this family. So far.. no good. Hopefully if/when Ryven gets home and has a kid of her own, I'll become more interested. I was bored to tears by Generations 2, 3, 6 and 7 with the Legacy's, so it's not like this sort of slump is a new thing. It just takes a new sim with a funky personality to catch my attention (like G4 Radiance or G9 Sheridan) or the household as a whole being interesting (like with G5 and G9).