With Autumn Comes the Long Night

 

    In the early days of their marriage, life for the Lassiters was good. Cora's garden was flourishing, and she had even won an award from the city for her contributions to the local food scene. Yves was an aspiring sculptor, so he spent most of his days in his studio in the basement, working away with clay or wood. Cora quickly learned which crops sold for more and started focusing on those, while Yves toiled almost endlessly to improve his skill, coming up from the basement only for what amounted to the basics of survival. They barely saw each other, even though they both worked from home and were on the same lot 24/7. 

    

First moments of labor

    Even with all that work, there was time enough for other activities, and it wasn't long before they found themselves expecting their first child. The birth kinda snuck up on us all, and once again they were pitifully broke, living bill to bill, harvest to harvest and sculpture to sculpture. 

Even in sleep, Cora dreams of work.

 They were both exceptional parents from the beginning, taking turns to watch over their son, Jean, who for a sim baby seemed remarkably fussy.  He demanded a lot of their time, and Cora began to see her garden fall into decline as she had less time to care for it.

   Cora and Yves were two ships passing in the night, and barely spoke or acknowledged each other. Even with Yves having 'workaholic' as one of his traits, he began wanting to spend time with Cora more than he wanted to sculpt or sell his work, and that was how I knew they were really falling deep into their own isolation.
  

    
     Autumn was marching stolidly onward, though, and many nights covered the garden in a layer of frost so thick that it took a few warm days to remove. So, when she could not garden, she spent extra time with Jean, doting on him. As they saved up some money, she also purchased some planter pots and moved some of her more valuable plants inside, to continue the growing season even through the increasingly colder days and nights.

Cora and Jean among the plants of her tiny conservatory.

    Even as her food harvests diminished and their profits (or in many cases, barely breaking even) fell with it, so too did their budget, and more and more of her harvests began to find a home in their own larder instead of being sold at the local market. Their home, though poor, was a beacon of warmth and love, a pool of golden light sheltered from the increasing frost and meager meals.

A quiet book on a frosty day.

 
      Jean was never hungry, though many nights his parents might have had less than they wanted or eaten leftovers for the umpteenth time in a row, keeping careful track of which were oldest so that nothing was spoiled or wasted. Jean knew nothing but love and attention, and Cora doted on him.

Yves worked

And worked.

And he worked. Exhaustion was a regular thing for him.

The new second story, with Cora enjoying a rare warm day.

        More and more, Yves worked while Cora raised Jean. While there was plenty of love, the labor was not quite shared. His sculptures were regularly bringing in about 1300 simoleons each. With the extra money, they scrimped here and there where they could, and with a little work they added a second story to the house, literally a wall or a room at a time as they could afford it. Even when 'finished' with paint and flooring, many of the rooms sat empty, devoid of furniture or light fixtures, or anything except the hope that one day the whole house, not just their few little ground rooms, would be full of life and light.

Jean's birthday and a cake they couldn't afford

 And a good thing too, Jean was having a birthday and would soon be starting to school. As a present they bought him furniture for his new room.








 But Cora was still worried about money. Yves tried to reassure her, confident in his growing skill and too prideful to admit that they might be struggling. Also maybe a little too focused on his work to realize he wasn't even really getting dressed each day, just stumbling down the stairs to the studio in whatever he had passed out in the night before.

     All I could think of while watching them fret was of the common meme making fun of the HGTV show "Househunters." Click the link if you're unfamiliar with the joke.

"Hi, I'm Cora, a home gardener and this is my husband Yves, a freelance sculptor."

You get the idea.

To compensate, he spent even more time in his studio, and she saw him only for a few minutes here and there, in passing, at night, in the early hours, whenever they could squeeze in a cup of coffee together. And once again, even those few fleeting moments were enough to add another small, looming reason to be worried: she was pregnant again. 
      In a moment of frivolity she had taken Jean to the autumn fair and gotten her face painted. Now, in the early morning, with the reality of a second pregnancy and even more bills piling up in the face of the oncoming winter, that one tiny act seemed stupid and wasteful.

Cora with Rickard.

     Their second son, Rickard, was born in the last week of autumn. Her garden was barely producing, spending more time dormant than workable. Yves, too, like the roots of her garden seeking nourishment below ground, spent more time in his basement studio than above it, frequently napping on a small futon down there instead of coming up to bed. He would come up to grab a plate of leftovers from the fridge, or to shower or use the toilet, but then he was back at work.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

 

It's Not Exactly a Tree...

Just in case you guys hadn't looked lately - I'm over halfway to my goal of playing through 20 generations of Sims. You can take a look at the family tree here. As I was updating the page with the newest generations, I got to thinking .... it's not exactly a tree. When you see pictures of people's family trees on big genealogical charts (especially those charts that are trying to prove some sort of important something), well, they actually look like trees, because they show both sides evenly, or as evenly as possible.

I was going to include some sort of pictoral reference point here - maybe the family tree of some country's monarchy, but the more I looked at all of them, the more I realised that theirs don't really look like trees either... more like tangled, mish-mashed webs. 

My sims? Well, I mainly just trace the heir's line, and show who they married, and any siblings, but that's about it. A lot of the time I can't show any more for the spouses' own personal lineages, as they are usually random townies generated by the game who don't have any parents at all. If they do have them, it only goes back one generation, and that's not much to add to the tree. Plus it makes it messy-looking. *** Edited to say I went back and added all known relatives, just to make it as accurate as possible. It looks messy, but the completionist in me is happy. The link above should still take you to the updated version. ***

I'm beginning to think they shouldn't look like trees at all.

It's also really rare for me to marry off the siblings as well, but the one or two times it's happened I was sure to show at least their spouse and any of their children - but again, with only an eight person limit to households, and never mind the fact that most of the time I've got at least three, if not four generations in the house at one time, it's hard to include everyone and their siblings. Hence the reason why most of my generations are only children, because I just don't have room for more than one. Let's not talk about Aegon's children. That was a fluke.

Yeah, we'll just call it a family vine.

Almost Halfway There

So, I feel like a slacker. Lots of things have happened in the legacy house. So much so, I'm not quite sure where to start.

Well, let's see. JC turned out to be a much better husband (and father!) than I thought he would. He stuck with his job as a police officer, and eventually was promoted into the detective/spy branch, just like he wanted. For a while, he actually looked kind of dashing in his uniform. He cut his hair, was constantly working out, and kept a pretty good income coming in.

Sybil had two children, Celandine and Warden. Both of them got the hereditary blonde hair with the red tips that's been in the family for a good many generations now in some form or another. Celandine, the eldest, got the genetic marker as well, which made me happy. Warden didn't, getting his father's blue/grey eyes instead, which was also fine by me, since technically he's not really important for the legacy. Not yet, anyways.

Both children grew up in boarding school, which made it easier to manage the house in the elder days of Virgil and Mary, while JC was working so hard to rise in the ranks of the precinct and Sybil was being.... Sybil. Training horses, I think. She was kind of lazy, actually.

But then Celandine and Warden came home from boarding school, all grown up and ready to be productive. Celandine fell in love almost instantly with the family butler, Rian Bates, and they were soon engaged. Probably one of the most romantic engagements I've ever seen in my Sims games. Made me smile.

They had a simple, private ceremony, and she was pregnant soon after. I am so glad Sims never have to deal with fertility issues. She had a son, whom I named Fedaykin (had Dune on the brain, no regrets), who has his dad's black hair and darker skin, but still has those yellow eyes. An interesting mix, and if he gets his dad's cheekbones I'll be happy.

Warden managed to seduce the alien who kept hanging around the house, and after a while they too were married, and Vofura had a daughter with Warden whom I named Tan-loc. Not sure where it came from, but it sounded like something an alien would be named.

I may have tinkered with her skin tone a bit. Just don't like that green skin. Wanted her to come from a warmer planet. The baby doesn't look half bad though.

In the end, Fedaykin and Tan-loc are so far the sole members of Generation 9 - and then it will be 10 coming up before I know it.

It's all downhill from there, they say. Please don't glitch out.

A Question of Legitimacy

As some of you may know, I decided to play through one Sims 3 family for 20 generations as part of my Day Zero Project. Generation 5 was just born to my gen4 girl, Lily, but I have a bit of a long story to preface my ... moral conundrum.

This is Lily. Lily had the start of a fantastic life. She had a great family, lots of opportunity, and a handsome boyfriend. She was determined to be a master of all the instruments in the Sims 3, and was making great progress, playing for hours each day.

Her boyfriend, Rashad, while handsome and sensitive and fabulously artistic (he painted and sculpted), wanted more than what she was giving. She wanted to get married, but he never asked her. Instead, he finally convinced her to scoodlypoo with him, and she did, in the hopes that it would satisfy him and then they would have a beautiful wedding. Instead, right after it was done, the totally cliche and very unfortunate happened: they had a fight and broke up. It was like he went crazy - implying her mother was a llama and other such nasty things. She was heartbroken, and she never saw him again. Last she heard, he was a writer for a tabloid magazine.

And then, surprise! You know what they say - it only takes once. She was pregnant! Her parents and grandmother were not thrilled, but they welcomed the child into the world, and Lily stood tall despite the rumors flying about town about how her son was conceived out of wedlock. For a while it was so bad Lily couldn't leave the house without people stopping and pointing and gasping and shaking their heads at her. One restaurant even refused to serve 'her type!' Despite all this, she persevered, and soon enough little Aegon was born.

 Surprisingly, he carries the genetic marker I put in Duncan at the start of the whole thing (bright yellow eyes. No, it has no purpose or meaning, other than I wanted something easily identifiable for a marker, as an experiment). So far it has shown up every other generation (Gens 1, 3, and 5), exactly.

All seemed well with the world, and eventually the rumors died down. People are fickle, and they will always have something new to gossip about. Hopefully it will be a while before poor Lily finds herself in the spotlight again.

Aegon was growing up quickly, learning new things every day about talking and walking and how to properly chew on toy cars. Lily continued to practice her instruments, and eventually she was able to leave the house without being ridiculed or shunned. They moved on with their lives.




 And by 'went on with their lives' I mean Lily really, truly, moved on. She went out and met people, determined to overcome the bad name people had put on her, and one of the people she met was Davon Lassiter. This time, she'd found a great guy. They got along great, he was a hard worker and, most of all, he respected her. He didn't seem to mind (or maybe he didn't know) about the rumors that occasionally still cropped up about Lily, and he was great with Aegon. He was sweet, funny, and even though he was overweight, he was a hard worker. They got married in an incredibly private ceremony (you don't get more private than the bathroom), he moved into the family estate, and soon after she was pregnant again. Things were looking up. Davon got in shape and really slimmed up, then he got a job as an inventor. The new baby turned out to be another son, and now Lily had two children, Aegon Morel (her maiden name) and Aemon Lassiter (her married name). Lily continued with her music, but it was harder now with two children.



And now the question stands: which one of her children will be the heir for the legacy game? Are there rules against bastards? Is it which ever child comes first? Does Aegon have to stand aside for his step-brother Aemon, simply because of a wedding ring? Does Aegon get precedence because he has the genetic marker? Answer in the comments below and tell me! I will go with whoever you decide, so vote!

A Simlish Wedding

Yes, I know I haven't posted in a while. Yes, I know no one cares but me.

I've been on a Sims 3 kick lately, maybe because of the new expansion coming out May 23rd, I dunno. Anyways, I have my sim Felurian and her boyfriend Yves, who she met in France. Yeah. I had no idea how accomplished he was when I put them together, but suddenly I realize he's a master cook and gardener and nectar-maker (read, he makes his own wine!) and he can play the piano and ..... swoon. So they fell in love, naturally. It was quite easy. All while she was on vacation in Champs les Sims.

Then, before she had to leave France, they had a fight and broke up. But when she got home, Felurian missed him, so she invited him to visit her, and suddenly, they were getting a long great - so well, in fact, that he moved in with her and never went back to France. Then he planted a garden in her backyard and started making wine in the basement, so I figured, hey, why not get engaged? So they did, and then they started planning their wedding ( <--- read: I started planning their wedding and scouting locations. This would be the first time I had had a real wedding for my Sims, with decorations and guests and whatnot. Every other couple before that had always had private weddings at home).

They had a big fancy wedding at the amphitheater in the park, and I managed to catch some interesting moments. I watched the whole thing with glee, I will assure you :)

This public wedding thing was fun, especially since Yves is a three-star celebrity so there were paparazzi snapping pics everywhere. It felt all glizty and very romantic.

The exchanging of rings.

 

The set up for the wedding. Most of the guests were on the dance floor at this point.

I chose the amphitheater for the wedding because it seemed like a romantic, quiet location. In retrospect, those descending tiers made it impossible to get good shots in or really set up decorations the way I wanted. The next wedding I have I will have to find a better spot - maybe the beach ^_^

Speaking of dancing, from the caption on the previous pic, here are the guests and the happy couple getting down and having a blast. Check out those back-bends Felurian can do. Show-off. Somebody's a bit too limber. Must be all that nectar.

Oh, and I finally figured out how to capture sound in Sims videos! Hooray! No idea what the song was, but it was catchy.

The bartender for the night was horribly deformed and ugly. 

I hired a mixologist (bartender) for the night to help keep the guests happy, and they sure kept her busy. I think half the business came from the bride herself. Apparently, Yves' wine must have spoiled her.

At the end of the party, one last kiss before they head home.

 
 I set up an 'altar' with candles and flowers, the effect was, for the most part, lost during the wedding while the sun was up, but once it got dark it looked rather.... well i was going to say charming, but now that I look at it it almost looks like something from a shrine. 

Someone was in such a hurry to get home she didn't even wait for the taxi.

This is where the camera pans away.....

MORE babies.

If you can't tell, I've been on a bit of a sims3 kick lately, playing my legacy game. I also have this sim I've been trying to kill off for a while, because she is glitched and it makes it impossible for her to do anything. Only problem is, she won't die. I put her in a tiny room, filled with fireplaces and rugs and loads of furniture, then lit all the fire places, and the whole room went up in flames, a massive fiery inferno. What did she do? Oh, she was terrified, but she just stood there, swathed in flames, screaming, but she wouldn't die. Why? Well, after about five attempts to burn her alive and two days of leaving her on the rooftop, something happened.

What? A baby bump? You mean she was pregnant? Oh, well that explains why she wouldn't die. It's strange how I had no qualms about killing her when it was just her, but as soon as I knew she was pregnant, it changed to: "at least let her have the baby."


Which she did. Excuse the lamp. I just had to get a shot of her face. By the way, how do you like my library? It's one of my favorite rooms in the house. Anyway, even as she was going through labor, she was still glitched. Every forty seconds or so she would stop, stand straight up with a zombie-dead expression on her face, and make some weird pose with her arms. Then she would go back to labor. Which lasted forever.

After a while, her ghostly mother-in-law showed back up, I suppose to provide moral support or something. Here is Richelle with the first baby of this pregnancy, a little boy named Wrigley. (No, I am not using traditional names for this sims bout, if you haven't figured it out by now). He also has a twin brother named.... oh I forget what his name is, but it was something very weird and I think it was even two words or something. Rice Cakes. Nine Valleys. Ross Stik. Something like that. I tend to name my sims after things I find on my desk. Hence the others' names of Pepsi, Visa, and so forth. Or what's on my mind, with Hobbit, Aion, Friday, and Sapphire. I told you they were weird names.

I knew this would happen

I suppose I deserve this for burying my poor dead sim on the lot where her surviving family still lives. Of course she's going to come back to haunt the rest of the family. Nevermind that she had a good life, saw the births of three grandchildren, and had an amazing house - NO - she had to come back and remind them of how miserable she could make their lives.

By playing computer games? Okay, if that's your idea of haunting, go right ahead. I have no issues with you using the computer while everyone else is asleep. Just don't go putting the furniture on the ceiling or anything. Then I might have to move your grave to somewhere a little less.... obtrusive.

Oh my. If just one day after she is dead and gone she comes back to haunt my family, and this is only the first sim on the lot to die, and I'm attempting to play for ten whole generations - how many ghosts will there be by the time I call it quits? There could be dozens of them. I suppose though, that the eightsimsonalot rule might prevail. I don't know. I have to make some more simbabies and see if that prevents her from coming back. Or not. Come to think of it, the babies are a pain and something I'd rather not deal with right now, seeing as I still have two toddlers loose in the house.

On a side note, I realized that this was the first time in TS3 that I'd played a single savegame long enough for a sim to actually die of old age. Usually I just get fed up with them and delete the game so I can start over.