New Simville Prosperity Challenge - Updates Two AND Three!
Oh man, in an effort to not be spammy I'm going to post one big update. But I've played up to Update Four (which I'll post tomorrow)! And I had to STOP playing because A) I made that mistake with my legacy, B) Keith and I were going to play a video game (City of Heroes) and that game is played at a different resolution than the Sims, which messes up my Sims window, putting it off center (and the only way to fix it is to reload the game) and C) there was a wicked thunderstorm last night which made the power flicker just enough to reboot my computer. Fun times.
ANYWAY...
The Lindmaker family was obviously more difficult than the Finlake family was, but I was determined to have Patrick teach the toddlers as many toddler skills he could.
Teaching toddlers their skills takes next to forever when you don't have Smart Milk and the season isn't Fall (as I'm sure anyone who has played an apocalypse can tell you).
But Patrick (and I) gave it the old college try. That's the problem with Sims starting as Elders: They have NO skills and NO aspiration points and Patrick here was being an awful, AWFUL Knowledge Sim. He rolled absolutely NO wants to train his grandchildren. None. So he didn't get any points for it, so he couldn't buy Smart Milk, NOT that it would have mattered because he wasn't anywhere near a gold (let alone platinum) aspiration to feed it to Ivy and Travis.
No. Let me show you what was the MOST IMPORTANT thing for Patrick to do:
Bogarting the bathroom and tub pirating for hours on end. He was such a piss poor Knowledge Sim, he wasn't even rolling skill point wants >.<
Someone asked me where the kids' mother (Karen) came from. I told them that she was the product of one of the Good Genes Challenges I had done, but as I looked at my entry I saw that she wasn't on there. She must have been one of the rejects that I didn't post about because I was trying all sorts of genetic combinations before I came up with a line that I really liked. As you can see by Nathan's nose and jaw though, he came from the line with Florence Delarosa and Benjamin Long in it.
Emily, as far as I can tell, is a facial clone of her father with her mother's brown hair (and Kenneth was mostly Lenore Patricia and Zane Patrick).
The couple of hours after the kids came home from school was pure hell. The toddlers were stinky because they were too tired to be potty trained, but they couldn't sleep because they had to use the bathroom. Emily and Nathan are playful, so school takes a toll on their fun meter, so there was a lot of hustling and bustling to get everyone organized.
And then I gave up on organized and settled for "no Social Worker."
Because everyone was starving. Patrick still had NO skill points, so thankfully he didn't burn the fish he had in his inventory (from when he was fishing at the Finlake's house).
Then, once everyone was fed and their fun meters were out of the orange, he taught Nathan and Emily how to do their homework. Then I realized that it was past midnight...
Add that to the fact that their beds only have 1 Comfort and 2 Energy (Or maybe 2 Comfort 1 Energy, I'm not sure and MAN, they DO look uncomfortable!) and this is what I had to deal with for the next couple of days before I could get a decent schedule set up:
Outstanding.
Over the course of the next two days, I was STILL trying to get the toddlers trained. Ivy had learned how to talk and she learned the nursery rhyme, but Travis had only learned how to talk.
Potty training was pretty much right out.
Patrick: You're effing kidding me, right?
Travis: Sorry, Grandpa. I'm too tired to be potty trained. Oh, and I just pooped my diaper.
Patrick: No, seriously, you're EFFING KIDDING ME, RIGHT?!
Travis: My fun meter is in the red! My life has been nothing but attempting to sleep and wallowing in my filthy diapers because I refuse to be potty trained!
Needless to say, I was very, very glad when they aged up.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the following day because I was too focused on getting everyone's fun meter up enough, particularly for the Ivy and Travis so they could learn to do their homework.
By this time, it was the weekend and then that's when I realized something:
*sounds of a record scratching*
Huh. So apparently kids can Classic Dance with each other, complete with the twirls...
No, THAT'S not what I was going to say.
I WAS going to point out that though the kids' bedroom could TECHNICALLY hold four beds (so long as they were bunk beds), there really wasn't any room for them to move around in, so they kept blocking each other.
We'll pretend that there were some threats made. By the way, how cute is that gnome wallpaper, right?
Anyway, the weekend was filled with fishing, skilling, and making sure everyone's fun meters were up.
Oh, and I spent a lot of time wondering who she reminded me of. Then it hit me:
Almost spot on, right?
And I think what all of you have learned about ME in this update is that I A) just caught up on Game of Thrones and can now "get" all the Game of Thrones Memes and B) I spend way too much time looking at memes.
On Sunday it was time for Emily and Nathan to age to Teen.
Emily Lindmaker
Libra
2/8/2/6/7
Knowledge/Popularity
City Planner
I was really, REALLY hoping that she'd roll Knowledge as one of her aspirations because my number one rule for all of this (one that overrides the "find a mate through the crystal ball") is to consolidate households. I knew with enough tweeking (and using Cameron's Romance Chemistry Bonus) that she'd be able to marry Cameron Finlake *\o/*
The downside was that I needed to move her to college right away so she'd be the same age as her future husband.
The plus side was that UNLIKE Cameron, she DID qualify for the Orphaned Assistance Fund. Oh, and she got the scholarship for having good grades. She didn't have much time to skill for the other scholarships. But she's Knowledge, so I knew she'd throw me skill related wants.
(There are no words.)
Nathan Lindmaker
Sagittarius
2/3/8/7/4
Family/Grilled Cheese
Graduate 3 Children from College
*laughs and laughs and laughs*
Good luck with that one, Nathan. Hopefully the gypsy will drop a magic lamp off so you can wish for "Peace of Mind" (which gives the Sim Perma-Plat status). Oh, and because he doesn't have a job related LTW, he has to find out other ways to earn money.
Because he's going to move out of the house at the end of his next rotation, I pulled out the crystal ball to see who would be most compatible for him. There were no playables on the list, so I chose this girl because she had blond hair. Her name (in this game) is Vyn Wolosenko. I have no idea what her aspiration is.
Nathan thought she was cute.
Vyn, on the other hand...I had no idea what her problem was.
And Nathan has 4 Nice points, so I have no idea what HIS problem is, either.
By this point it was getting late, so Vyn went home on her own, Emily moved off to college...
...and Nathan continued to look pissed, even though I gave him a makeover. Whateves, dude. Whateves.
That's all for the Lindmakers. Next up is:
I LOATHE college, I really, really do. I have no idea why, especially since I have the "Semester Changes" hack. I guess it's because all it is is skilling (if the kids don't already have their skills maxed out) and getting couples together. Nothing INTERESTING ever happens in college, which is probably why I started staging EVERYTHING in my legacy. If nothing interesting happens, then at least PRETEND something interesting happened for the sake of my readers.
Unfortunately, there is no plot here. So nothing interesting happens.
There's a lot of this.
This.
This.
This.
This.
Can't forget about this.
And most CERTAINLY there was this.
By the end of Sophomore year (which was 4 Sim days) they were in love. It's kind of a record considering they had JUST met each other and they had to skill, do term papers, and go to class.
With InTeen there's an extra step, I guess, for relationships which is the "Committed Relationship" option. Cameron is a Romance/Knowledge Sim so, unlike Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Challenge, he's not terribly happy about committed relationships. Though, to be honest, I don't believe SNAITC throws green memories of getting engaged. But at least he WANTS them. I was lucky that Cameron didn't have the fear.
I was getting bored with them and praying for college to end so I could get the next generation underway. "My readers will understand why I'm so bored with college! They have to! NOTHING INTERESTING EVER HAPPENS! WHY CAN'T ANYTHING INTERESTING EVER--"
*sound of record scratching*
...
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Cameron: I think the condom broke. Oops.
Emily: Pfft. What's the worst that can happen?
Well, that's ONE way to make things interesting. Ask and I shall receive.
Emily got pregnant. I didn't even KNOW that was possible.
Then I remembered that I have InTeen and apparently InTeen DOES make it possible.
So I went from "*yawn* THIS IS BORING!" to "OMGWTFBBQ! WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO?!"
I..I really have no in between, do I?
Then I was like, "Well maybe it won't advance much like it doesn't advance when Sims are on vacation!"
Nope. It DOES advance.
Then I remembered something from a loooooooong time ago, way before I started my legacy in which I don't use InTeen. I recently installed InTeen for something else (For what? You'll find out! Mwahahahaha!). Anyway, from like five or six years ago I remembered having one of my college students get pregnant AND give birth while she was on campus. And THEN I remembered what a PAIN in the ASS it is to have that happen.
You see, when a student moves from college, they don't move out in the traditional way. They grow up and just leave. You can't make them leave university via eviction. So how on earth do you bring a baby home with the parents?
By Boolprop, or the Sim Blender, or something like that, which I'm sure causes a whole BUNCH of problems.
So I did something that I probably shouldn't have:
No! Not THAT. You know I couldn't do that :(
I checked to see how many hours Emily was along and compared it to how long she would have before she graduated. Seeing as the math told me that she would have the kid BEFORE I graduated, I did this:
I waited until she had her third baby pop and suspended the pregnancy.
And then I just made her meditate seeing as she was platinum from skilling, getting on the Dean's List, writing her term papers and her grade bar was completely full. I thought about dropping her out of college and I WOULD have if she and Cameron's aspirations were switched. But no, seeing as she a real and for true Knowledge Sim that would have tanked her aspiration.
Anyway, once I suspended Emily's pregnancy and made her meditate, I didn't worry about her.
CAMERON, on the other hand, was being a gigantic pain in the butt.
He REFUSED to roll any decent wants. No Romance wants. No Knowledge wants. No, all he wanted to do was "Catch Bugs" and "Go Hiking" and "Catch Butterflies." In the vain hope that he'd roll SOME sort of high aspiration want, I sent him hiking knowing that it would cause his want panel to refresh.
Not that he rolled anything decent then, either. Oh, and he got poison ivy which made him cancel out everything else in his queue >.< Cameron was useless. And barely in the green.
Once I got the five hour notice that their final exams for Senior Year were going to take place, I resumed Emily's pregnancy.
And then sent them both to their exams. Emily wanted to graduate Summa Cum Laude. Cameron still wanted to catch bugs.
So you can imagine who raked in the aspiration points and who was still holding out for the want of "Go Fishhing" to be fulfilled.
Then it was time to move the kids back home. Emily was 57 hours pregnant.
The rules state that you can't use the "Merge Households" option because of the fact that the Sims bring in 20K. But I have the "No 20K Hack" and I wasn't merging them, per se. I didn't want to do the extra step of moving Emily onto an empty lot with a phone and having Cameron call her to move in which was going to happen immediately seeing as Cameron's house is next up on my rotation. So they each got plopped into Cameron's house carrying only 5K in funds apiece. The Finlake family isn't going to be rolling in the dough, so I figured it would be okay :/
So that's all I have for this update! I learned a very valuable lesson: Don't complain about college because things CAN get interesting, and not in ways that you would like. Oh, and I wrote myself a note to REMOVE InTeen before the next generation of my Devereaux Legacy goes to college.
Anyway, thanks for reading! Until next time, Happy Simming!