The return of Garrett and Picspam, plus others
By popular demand (okay because I love him and one other person asked for him), I give you What Garrett McMurphy Is Up To.
Garrett, as some of you may remember from a previous post, is my beloved FTM engineering major who was incorporated into the vast, sprawling Snow clan and was last seen in college, pining after girls. Well, he found one. I had him call the social worker and she sent him on a date with a woman named Cynthia Shephard, who is waaay older than him.
This is Cynthia:
Let me backtrack and give some info on her, because she and her "housemate" Tara Monroe are also great favorites of mine.
Cynthia, as her eyes would suggest, is a mutant (and since I seem to have gained some new readers with the Blakes, let me further backtrack and mention that basically every unusual looking sim in my game is a mutant. Blame the Xmen nerd in me.) She often lights things on fire in her sleep. I came up with this power because in the first three sim days of her existance, five trees were struck by lightning, each time while she was sleeping. I love it when my game works with me like that.
Anyway, her very visible mutation led to her being essentially kicked out of the community of Carver Heights (my name for Pleasantview), and so she moved to an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of Pine Hill. At this point she gained a housemate- Tara Monroe, professional Surly Teenager.
Let it be known that Tara is also in my top 10 list of favorite sims, ever. She was kicked out by her parents when her own mutant powers (telekinesis) started manifesting, and she's suspicious, bitchy, and callous. Living with the incredibly patient and forgiving Cynthia has mellowed her a lot, but she's still kind of caustic and has a lot of self hate.
Anyways, at this point we rejoin Garrett. Like I said, I decided Cynthia was too old for him, and so even though they had three bolts, I sent her home and had him try again with the fortune teller. And who should drop from the sky? Cynthia again.
I can take a hint.
By the end of their first date, they were totally smitten, and I was totally in love with their pairing.
Garrett in particular seemed to be walking on air, and since I'll do whatever it takes to make him happy, he moved in with Cynthia as soon as he finished college.
This led to some interesting stuff with Tara. She was threatened by a new person in her life, and the fact that Cynthia was so obviously in love made her feel abandoned and shut out. She became even more shut off and unhappy, and after several extremely unsuccessful dates via fortune teller, started despairing about finding love. She resented Garrett and refused to talk to him.*
Meanwhile, totally unaware, Garrett and Cynthia continued being in love.
Eventually, Garrett and Tara started talking late at night, and Tara discovered that they had a lot in common. They became good friends and Tara got over her feelings of abandonment a little bit, and then seemingly got over them entirely when she got an excellent boyfriend, Phillip Carroway, who is the ultimate rebel cool dude despite the fact that he lives at a boarding school.
With all the emotional problems dealt with, Cynthia, Garrett, and Tara moved into town and our main couple got married (by the way: The option was to Get Married, not to Join Union. I squealed in delight).
And now I'm going to be horrible and get into some stuff that no one cares about except me (like I haven't done that enough in this post?) because Garrett and Cynthia invited almost all of my favorite sims to their wedding, and oh my god I'm going to catalogue them.
So here we go. The yawning gentleman on the far left is Adam Birch, Garrett's stepbrother and BFF FOR EVAZ. I'm going to do a whole separate post on Adam, because he's fantastic in his own right.
Between Adam and Tara is Garrett's stepmom and Adam's mother, Kat. She is part of the second generation of the vast, sprawling Snow clan (yes, I always refer to them as such). A short time after this picture she hit elderhood, which means she'll soon be dying, which means I'm going to be very bummed.
On the far right is Dean Marcus, who was sort of covered in these two posts, but never really gets the attention due to him. He's good friends with Garrett.
On the other side of the aisle, we have Tara's beau Phillip, and Garrett's twin siblings Charlie and Grace McMurphy. Charlie is a fashionplate, and Grace is a very grounded young bookworm. She and Cynthia immediately became friends, both having similar personalities. Not pictured are Garrett's dad Ryan and Dean's mom Becca. who is Cynthia's friend. Cynthia honestly doesn't know that many people, which is why most of the guests were invited by Garrett.
Here's how things stand with the family now: Garrett and Cynthia couldn't be more in love, if I weren't such a fan of them I'd be sickened. They have two kids, who will probably get their own post soon because their son, Connor, is fascinating. Tara still lives with them, although she'll be growing up soon (I doubt she'll go to college). She has claimed the attic as her own space, and exists as sort of a satellite to the main family.
*I'm not a crazy person, I know sims don't have motivations or anything. But I like stories and I sometimes write as if my sims are real and have free will. Just thought I should make it clear.