The Tomato Legacy, Episode Three: Seedlings
Since it's been close to a year since the last update (and no, I'm not even kidding-it was in May of 2010), a slight recap is in order.
Strange Tomato (me) got bored and sent her simself to Elsewhere so she could start a legacy and talk about herself in the third person. She (or I, rather) decided to make things interesting by having Strange become every type of creature in the game, all mixed up into one sim that dies without sunlight, but sizzles like a strip of bacon when exposed to sun. Being also an infertile zombie, she continued the family line via asexual plantsim reproduction.
Greene Tomato grew up very fast, putting us that much further ahead with the legacy. Shortcuts, shortcuts, my friends! Greene was also abducted and soon had twins, naming them Aubergine and Pepper. Surviving their early years, despite a neglectful nanny that attempted to kill one of them and dump the body in the trash, the twins became toddlers. Other stuff happened too, mostly involving Strange's bare turquoise bum, but you'll just have to read it to find out.
And that's where we pick up things in this episode.
Strange decided to make up for some of her shoddy mothering by being the best damn Grandma Tomato she could be. As a werewolf, that grew more difficult every day. Her personality was on a steady path to 0/10/10/10/0 with each transformation. Oh well, at least she's playful for the sake of the kids.
On a slightly related note, it sort of freaks me out a little that Pepper reminds me of one of my own grandmothers in her facial features. I think it's the mouth. It's possible that she inherited Strange's lips, which she (I) inherited from my Nan (in real life), but I'm not really sure if that's the case. Anyway, I thought it was interesting. The eyebrows and (lack of) chin add to the effect.
Gloria, one of Strange's many lovers, was still hanging around. She seemed pretty fond of the little seedlings.
Or maybe it's just Aubergine. The kid has charisma, for sure. She was always nabbing the attention of non-playable characters.
Plus she's seventy different kinds of adorable.
Raising twins is a full time job, so the whole family pitched in.
Strange: Say Nanny. Nan-nee...
Aubergine: Alien-zombie-vampire-werewolf-plantsim-witch!
Then the weirdest thing happened. Pepper started stinking up a green cloud, but her hygeine wasn't even depleted. I had Strange take her and bathe her several time, but still the Ball of Stink (TM) remained.
Is this the result of her garbage can trauma as a baby? I knew that incident would leave lasting scars! *worry hands*
Still, she happily sat there in her stink while Aubergine was the one complaining. Though I suppose I might scream too, if I was trapped in a room with stinky-pants over there.
Greene had good reason to worry. This place was chaos while the twins were toddlers! I'm not completely sure, but I think it was the nanny who pissed on the floor next to the potty. Not exactly a great role model for potty training. She could have at least aimed for the potty!
I have no idea why I didn't just fire that nanny at this point. I'm sure I did it eventually. Maybe I realized I needed all the help I could get!
Strange was also very concerned about the condition of her home.
(Sidenote: I love how this work outfit actually gave her hair. Is it attached to the hat, maybe?)
The upkeep of the exterior property is no better than the interior. Or, more plainly put, this place is a dump!
Somehow, the twins survived to age up to children, maintaining their unique looks as they went.
Here's a better look at Pepper's face. I love her slightly cranky features.
And here's Aubergine. So adorable!
Aubergine's Cheekbone: Don't get in my way or I will cut through you like a warm knife through butter!
That's her hair you hear wimpering in fear.
There isn't really a good reason for me to have included this second headshot of Aubergine, other than obvious favouritism.
Aubergine's Cheekbone: Still here. Lookatmelookatmelookatme!
Pepper seemed to be developing into quite the optimist. I guess when you start your life being dumped into garbage cans, you can only go up from there. It's nice to see she chose to have a positive outlook all the same.
Right side of Strange's body: Hey everyone! Good to see you! :D
Left side of Strange's body: *drags*
Nothing makes an outfit sexier than a big ol' witches hat, don't you think? It really just goes with it. Strange is just lucky she didn't end up in the Intelligence career. It'd be pretty tough for her to blend in with her signature hat in tow.
Further proof that Elsewhere is a really small town. Everybody is everybody else's cousin in some way. Heh. I know the feeling.
The locals are so friendly here (and generous)! It'd really help out if any of my sims had career LTWs, but alas... I had to get the dating and woohooing ones instead.
I eventually wised up to the fact that I could just summon the matchmaker, pay rock bottom prices for a date, and then end it immediately. Strange needed 50 first dates, not good dates.
This strategy resulted in many awesome pairings, like Good Witch/Bad Witch.
Strange: But I can change her, I just know it...
Sure you can, honey.
\
Further proof of the generousity of the locals!
I will, however, need to talk to this company about their use of gendered job titles. Good thing they hired Strange. She'll obviously have a word with them about it. She prefers the term foresim, or maybe even forecreature.
This loading screen really illustrates the personality of the twins as children. It's all about Augergine, all the time, while Pepper's just chillin'.
Greene was still working away at his business. He eventually earned a gold talent badge, though you'd hardly know it by the amount of beauty disasters he turned out on a regular basis.
The kids were eager to make some extra money from the customers while they were waiting for their makeovers, which, you have to admit, was pretty clever of them.
Aubergine again, demanding lots of attention from everyone within shouting distance. Greene was more than happy to indulge her, most of the time. In fact, they usually had wants to match. It was pretty cute. He was a good parent.
See Ginger Newson back there? That's foreshadowing.
Ginger: But I said I wanted a trim, not extensions! I can't afford this!
Greene: Okay then, I guess we'll have to take them out again. *sigh*
I love the glasses and facial hair hack so much! Isn't he a great carpool driver?
I have no idea why Faith Goodie had a breakdown, since I didn't play any of the premade sims (I even made them all into townies, I think). Can a bad makeover really have that much of an effect?
Note to self: Fire that nanny already!
Pepper was also helping herself to the bubble blower. I just knew she'd grow up to be a troubled youth.
Her sister had other issues. Run, Aubergine! Do not engage in conversation with that lady. it will not end well!
One of budgie_budgie 's sims. I really love how unique they are, so I added some to Elsewhere.
Really, there are no words. And just look at the look on her face! Scary!
I think this might be the point where I finally decided to fire her. About bloody time!
Care to guess who owns the floating sunglasses in this hair cloud? Hint: the rest of his outfit matches his Xtreme sport shades.
If you guessed Trent Traveller, you win!
I think it's an improvement, don't you? ;)
Strange thought she'd give Trent a little makeover, too.
Yeah, I know it's not specific, but why pass up an opportunity to try to knock those stupid sunglasses off his face? :P
Gavin Newson was very concerned. (Or maybe it's just because he realized that Trent is stealing his look.)
He put up a valiant effort, but the werewolf always wins in the end.
Nice. I think it's a good look for him.
Strange headed off on yet another outing. For simplicity's sake, I decided to cut a lot of the outing pics out of this update, so I'll summarize:
Strange went to community lots. She dated many sims...
Turned some sims into werewolves...
Turned other (and some of the same) sims into witches...
And she decided she wanted to be cured of lycanthropy.
Oh really? That's interesting.
As a Knowledge sim, I wouldn't have thought Strange would want to be cured of anything, but it seems clear to me that lycanthropy rates as the very least desirable of all the sim creatures, based on how I've seen sims react. Being a werewolf is not good, my friends. Even knowledge sims seem to have mixed feelings about it. Strange always wants to cure Trent and is fearful of hearing him howl (but also wants to).
Strange also received another job offer. For the career she used to have. Hmm. Let's weigh the pros and cons here.
Well, on one hand, this erases all my career advances and puts Strange back to the career track she was originally on, at a level she had long passed.
On the other hand, I've decided I always have to say yes to chance card type things.
So, really, all I can say is THIS.
Back at home, Greene seemed to have found someone special. For a romance sim, he's been pretty unsuccessful, so it's nice to see him hitting it off with Bruce.
Strange whipped up a cure and went for it, while Trent eyed the tasty spoiled lemonade. Werewolves will eat anything. Such filthy creatures.
Strange: I'm cured, but my face is still a different colour than the rest of my body.
Yeah, sorry about that. It's the face-only default replacements. They're obviously not a great option for anyone wanting to layer their creatures. That's a tip for anyone else who wants to try it. Get the full body versions.
Trent once again proved himself to be one of the very bluntest tools in the shed.
I'm only including one pic, but he did this over and over again! If he can't change his appearance, why is he constantly lining up for a makeover?! Gah! It made me want to have Strange fight him all over again.
It's been so long since I shot these pics, I'm sure I'm getting the timelines a little borked, but this happened somewhere along the line. It's a good example of the mixed success and failure rate in this family. Aubergine seems to be a bit of an overachiever, at the expense of her health.
And then Greene decided to take it to the next level with Bruce.
The Family secondary is strong with this one.
What a face! I think it's safe to say the answer was yes.
Oddly enough, Greene didn't roll the want to get married after this, and I know there's usually only a brief window where it'll show up after the engagement (I think the love-->engagement-->marriage wants are all linked to appear in a chain reaction of sorts), so it's probably a fair guess that Greene and Bruce are going to be one of those perma-engaged couples.
The weather turned quickly and it starts raining, with a change of thundershowers.
A very strong chance.
*cue ominous music*
No, you're eyes do no deceive you. Of all the items on this lot, the lightning hit Greene's beauty station! And then he caught on fire, too. Of course.
Herb Goodie: My word! This is not a very pleasing shopping experience.
Greene: A little help here...?
Luckily, it kept raining, and soon the flames were extinguised.
Though it took a little while for Greene to catch on to that fact.
Greene: Whew! That was a close call!
Herb took that as a good time to complain about Strange. Really. Some people have no idea about manners. And don't even ask what Strange was doing to invite this complaint. Probably being her usual stinky, naked, charming self.
He gained a star anyway, so I'm not really sure what his problem is. Whatever. The customer is always right, and all that.
Time to age up! These kids were too cool for birthday cakes. That, and their father and garndmother were too busy dating and being on fire and stuff.
Synchronized teen strut!
They looked really wrong with the normal eyes, so I quickly gave them alien contacts.
Strange continued to get the Matchmaker to set her up on awesome dates...
...while Trent continued to receive awesome makeovers.
I love how he decided to tip Pepper for the exceptional service. Such a winner.
At least this work uniform made it seem like Strange had a reason for walking that way. Must be heavy!
She headed downtown for an awesome makeover. Yeah, that's right. Instead of getting her own son to do it. She's just a dick like that. Or perhaps she's seen his work?
This stylist obviously has real skill. She didn't even remove the helmet!
While Strange was in the salon, Greene and Bruce were... umm... PDA-ing, to say the least.
More like attempting to get arrested for indecent exposure.
Peter Ottomas was scandalized!
Gee, you'd think he'd have seen worse...
A close up shot, just to show you the nice work Greene did on his makeover.
That moustache was just made for Peter, don't you think?
Back at home, Pepper was really taken with Ginger Newson, but her moves didn't seem to be working.
Peter: She's playing hard to get, girl!
Pepper (thinking): Don't engage. just ignore him.
Peter Ottomas: You'll never get into her box that way, sweetie!
Pepper: OMG what a creep.
Ginger: Let's go egg his house later.
Pepper was encouraged by Ginger's comment, and she seemed to be warming up to her, but also giving off some serious mixed signals. Perhaps she wasn't yet comfortable with the idea of dating another female sim?
Pepper decided to call in some reinforcements.
It worked. After a couple of accepted flirts, Ginger was all over her.
Too bad that potion didn't also repel the creepy Ottomas clan, eh Pepper?
Pepper: God, what is it with boys and lesbians? It's so annoying.
Ginger: Seriously, I have a carton of eggs in my inventory.
After the love potion helped her to win over Ginger's fickle heart, Pepper swooped in for her very first kiss.
Meanwhile, the Ottomas family continued to do their very best to ruin the moment for her.
In no time at all, Ginger made herself right at home in the Tomato household, casual nudity and all.
I don't know if the slang's the same everywhere, but this definitely counts as a double entendre where I come from. XD I feel so immature, but I couldn't help giggling.
Biased? How so? I mean, it was titled Tomatoes are the Greatest Food Ever, but that's just an objective fact!
Not a bad paycheck for a teen, don't you think? I can see why people have made hacks to reduce the amount paid for restaurant guides. It's just too easy. They don't even take that long to write.
Strange continued to rub the matchmaker the wrong way with her cheapo donations. Please note that this is an entirely new evil witch. That doesn't even make sense! The matchmaker just hates her that much.
You can actually see Strange's makeover in this pic. I thought she definitely needed some more stuff on her face. :P
It also demonstrates her love for playing in the bathtub and breaking things.
Strange quite literally dragged her feet off to work once again for the evening, but such is the life of a working grandmother. She had to bring home the brains, errr, bacon.
And after all that job switching, she was back to mime again. It must be fate.
Greene got broody again (such a secret Family sim!), so I let him go the instant gratification route and sprout a plantbaby.
And so we welcome Cherry Tomato into our family.
Given that I don't have the preg for all hack installed, Greene has neatly avoided this issue by being abducted and using plantsim reproduction. I don't plan to use this hack for same sex couples (it'll be a little touch of realism), so Pepper may be our first sim to encounter this issue head-on.
Don't worry, you know I have a plan. ;)
Cherry, of course, is a genetic duplicate of Strange and Greene in personality, but seems to offer a very different sort of face to this family. It's nice to have variety, and I think she's a cute little thing with her tiny eyes.
This cuteness would probably be a pretty good place to end off on, but I have something even sweeter...
Pepper decided it was time to take things to the next level with Ginger, so she asked her to go steady.
Ah, young love. ^_^
Will it stand the test of time? Find out in our next exciting episode! Same Tomato time, same Tomato journal. And by same time, I don't mean a whole year from now. I can't make any promises, but I'll try my best to update at least semi-regularly.
Thanks for reading!