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It's Just Not Fair..... (a.k.a. The Crumplebottom Saga)
marstinson
Posts: 367 Member
Excuse the wall of text, but the setup is important to the story. I started up a new game today with Agnes Crumplebottom as my playable Sim. My last game, where my Sim married her, got a bit of corruption and I didn't feel like backtracking, so decided to start over using essentially the same setup as my previous game only starting with Agnes.
For the family history part of the story, the short version runs like this: Simon and Prudence Crumplebottom have five daughters: Cornelia, Beatrice, Agnes, Belinda, and Bianca (the three in Moonlight Falls have no parents in their family tree, so I'm improvising). Cornelia elopes with Gunther and settles in Sunset Valley. Simon and Prudence bring Agnes to Sunset Valley in the hope of talking Cornelia into coming back to Moonlight Falls, leaving the other two in the care of the Beatrice, but old age catches up with them and Agnes is stranded in Sunset Valley, where she makes the best of the situation that she can. This required using Master Controller to add the appropriate occult states and family relationships (and Debug Enabler to get Simon and Prudence's tombstones into Agnes' possession), but I managed to get it set up. I hated Agnes' house, so sold it and moved her into the house next door (Wagner's Retreat, I think), leaving Erik to haunt an empty house. Never liked him much anyway.
(EDIT - note to self when you can't remember how you did this (you have to be in Moonlight Falls) - Add Sibling in Master Controller produced an odd effect in that Beatrice (the first one attempted) got added as a sister, but Belinda and Bianca turned into half-sisters as the game picked up Simon as the parent, but left Prudence flapping in the breeze for them. Solution was to open the family tree, right-click Simon --> Master Controller --> Add Child --> close filters --> select Beatrice, Belinda and Bianca --> OK. Repeat for Prudence. Right-click Simon again --> Master Controller --> Intermediate --> Relationship by Category --> close filters --> select Agnes, Beatrice, Belinda and Bianca --> set relationship category and OK each. Repeat for Prudence. Family tree now shows the desired ancestry for everyone. Regular MC to set relationship levels between the (now) sisters. Relationship between Cornelia and the others remains an issue, likely until she shows up in Moonlight Falls they show up in Sunset Valley as random tourists - still needs to be tested - /EDIT)
Agnes became a writer since that was her LTW anyway. I put those Hopeless Romantic and Loner traits to use and had her crank out Romance novels where she rakes in $35K per week with the Acclaimed Author LTR and Level 10 Writing skill with all of the skill challenges completed.
Across the street are Molly French and Fiona McIrish with their daughters. Both Molly and Fiona get married, but don't move out, so I had River join my household after she aged up to YA and we moved back to Moonlight Falls. River is not a Supernatural. I have her check for a Witch's Brew or something at Allistair's, but they haven't shown up yet and Agnes' Alchemy skill isn't high enough yet to make it herself. I did get her a broom, though.
We visited the Crumplebottom sisters as a way of getting out of the house and Belinda decided that Love Charms would be fun, so River and Agnes ended up as RI's. Not quite what I had in mind, but it's a situation that can be worked with/around. Everything settled back to some semblance of normality (for Moonlight Falls, anyway) when River got whammied with another of Belinda's Love Charms, and now River has two RIs (Agnes and Belinda) and a "Naughty" reputation. No sooner do I get her away from Belinda than she walks back over to Belinda to get whammied again, and has three RIs (Agnes, Belinda, and Bianca). I am NOT making this up. I'd take Belinda's wand away, except that the game believes that every Witch should have a wand and automatically generates one (I'm sure there is a quick ticket to some Simoleons in there somewhere).
So if you have managed to follow along thus far, what do you think? Do I revert to a pre-Bianca's mess save, play the hand that got dealt, or use MC to clear off the extra RIs? My initial inclination is to go the MC route, but there's a good story brewing in here. I just don't think it ends well for any of them.
For the family history part of the story, the short version runs like this: Simon and Prudence Crumplebottom have five daughters: Cornelia, Beatrice, Agnes, Belinda, and Bianca (the three in Moonlight Falls have no parents in their family tree, so I'm improvising). Cornelia elopes with Gunther and settles in Sunset Valley. Simon and Prudence bring Agnes to Sunset Valley in the hope of talking Cornelia into coming back to Moonlight Falls, leaving the other two in the care of the Beatrice, but old age catches up with them and Agnes is stranded in Sunset Valley, where she makes the best of the situation that she can. This required using Master Controller to add the appropriate occult states and family relationships (and Debug Enabler to get Simon and Prudence's tombstones into Agnes' possession), but I managed to get it set up. I hated Agnes' house, so sold it and moved her into the house next door (Wagner's Retreat, I think), leaving Erik to haunt an empty house. Never liked him much anyway.
(EDIT - note to self when you can't remember how you did this (you have to be in Moonlight Falls) - Add Sibling in Master Controller produced an odd effect in that Beatrice (the first one attempted) got added as a sister, but Belinda and Bianca turned into half-sisters as the game picked up Simon as the parent, but left Prudence flapping in the breeze for them. Solution was to open the family tree, right-click Simon --> Master Controller --> Add Child --> close filters --> select Beatrice, Belinda and Bianca --> OK. Repeat for Prudence. Right-click Simon again --> Master Controller --> Intermediate --> Relationship by Category --> close filters --> select Agnes, Beatrice, Belinda and Bianca --> set relationship category and OK each. Repeat for Prudence. Family tree now shows the desired ancestry for everyone. Regular MC to set relationship levels between the (now) sisters. Relationship between Cornelia and the others remains an issue, likely until she shows up in Moonlight Falls they show up in Sunset Valley as random tourists - still needs to be tested - /EDIT)
Agnes became a writer since that was her LTW anyway. I put those Hopeless Romantic and Loner traits to use and had her crank out Romance novels where she rakes in $35K per week with the Acclaimed Author LTR and Level 10 Writing skill with all of the skill challenges completed.
Across the street are Molly French and Fiona McIrish with their daughters. Both Molly and Fiona get married, but don't move out, so I had River join my household after she aged up to YA and we moved back to Moonlight Falls. River is not a Supernatural. I have her check for a Witch's Brew or something at Allistair's, but they haven't shown up yet and Agnes' Alchemy skill isn't high enough yet to make it herself. I did get her a broom, though.
We visited the Crumplebottom sisters as a way of getting out of the house and Belinda decided that Love Charms would be fun, so River and Agnes ended up as RI's. Not quite what I had in mind, but it's a situation that can be worked with/around. Everything settled back to some semblance of normality (for Moonlight Falls, anyway) when River got whammied with another of Belinda's Love Charms, and now River has two RIs (Agnes and Belinda) and a "Naughty" reputation. No sooner do I get her away from Belinda than she walks back over to Belinda to get whammied again, and has three RIs (Agnes, Belinda, and Bianca). I am NOT making this up. I'd take Belinda's wand away, except that the game believes that every Witch should have a wand and automatically generates one (I'm sure there is a quick ticket to some Simoleons in there somewhere).
So if you have managed to follow along thus far, what do you think? Do I revert to a pre-Bianca's mess save, play the hand that got dealt, or use MC to clear off the extra RIs? My initial inclination is to go the MC route, but there's a good story brewing in here. I just don't think it ends well for any of them.
Post edited by marstinson on
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Everything kind of went back to normal in the household for a couple of days. Agnes got invited to a party hosted by Beatrice, so she took River along. One of them (I forget which of them was selected at the time) decided that this would be a good time to run upstairs and knock boots (I'm using The Mod Which Must Not Be Named, so this kind of thing happens, usually at inconvenient times). The deed gets done and Beatrice kicks River out for behaving inappropriately (which kind of makes me think that Agnes initiated the whole thing). River got out to the front porch, immediately sent Beatrice a nasty text (that'll teach her - thbbb!) and headed home. A couple of days later, I get a message that Belinda and Pappy had a baby girl. Pink bubble-gum cigars all around.
After letting things settle for a bit, I sent River over to try to patch things up with Beatrice. Beatrice greeted her, invited her inside, kissed her, turned into a Romantic Interest (River is now has a Manipulator reputation), and suggested some autonomous horizontal mambo as a way of passing the afternoon. Best guess is that one of the sisters had recently whammied Beatrice, since no one had the chance to do it to River after the last incident. Afterward, River goes back downstairs and takes care of the crying baby. Nice thing about the RI part is that it comes with enough relationship to be able to deal with these little problems. Baby taken care of, but no crib in which to put her (I'll catch it the next time I run Home Inspector).
About this time, the other two sisters come home from work. Enough time has passed that the relationship with both has dropped below the 40-point autonomous gate that I set in the mod, so I figure River is semi-safe. It appears to be working when Bianca brings on a little flirtiness, which creeps out River, who immediately proceeds to socialize Bianca back up above 40 and the autonomous sheet dancing is back, right in front of (or behind) Belinda who obliviously watches TV through the whole thing. River slips under the sheets, sleeps, and overstays her welcome (at least according to the baby who says that she is behaving inappropriately, even though the baby can't talk yet). I decide that enough of this is enough and send River back home while I decide how to sort out the whole mess.
The Clean Slate LTR isn't a quick option (aside from cheating) since River burned almost all of her points on the Acclaimed Author LTR just before Belinda started her nonsense. And to top it all off, River now has the Nauseous (from Unknown Causes) moodlet. A quick MC Status check showed that Bianca is going to be a father in a bit more than two days. I've set all of this up on it's own save branch, so we'll see how it plays out.
River is Good, so the goal is to take care of the RIs without undue heartbreak. First things first: deal with Agnes under the premise that you ought to dance with the one what brung you. River confessed to cheating, even though it wasn't her fault. Agnes got the Betrayed moodlet, but we'll sort that out later. A bit of cheering up, day-brightening, praising Agnes' latest book, and that sort of thing and the long-term relationship is back up above 40.
Bianca was next. Found her outside of the Red Velvet Lounge. Why she's hanging out in a vampire bar when I have vampires turns off is a good question, but irrelevant. River lets her know that she's going to be a father, and then does the "Just be Friends" thing and socializes her back up to Friend. That went easier than I had expected, but I forgot that she has Commitment Issues. Beatrice and Belinda weren't quite that easy.
River found them having a picnic in a park. Interestingly, Fiona (with a Tourist tag) was in the park, too, so I thought it might be a good to let her know that she was going to be a grandma. She headed off to parts unknown and disappeared from the relationship panel before I could get there. Igazor tells me that this is the Register mod, so a bit of tuning on that is probably in order. I tried to do the same with Belinda as with Bianca:
"Belinda, you're going to be an aunt!"
"Really? That's great!"
"Yeah, wanna feel my tummy?"
"Wow! That is so cool! Do you think it's a girl or a boy?"
"I think it's a girl."
"Awesome! It would be so great if she was a Witch, don't you think?"
"Yes, it would be. But let's cool it on the romance thing, m'kay?"
"Assassin! I'll cut out your spleen with a spoon and feed your liver to rabid weasels!"
Yeah, she didn't take it so well. A couple of Sim-hours worth of socializing later, we're at least back on reasonable speaking terms. Beatrice went about the same except that Belinda kept interrupting to target River with a spell. Fortunately River was on to her tricks, so kept focused on Beatrice, who took quite a bit longer (that Grumpy trait is hard to work around - lots of apologize and try again).
By late evening, River is back to being Friend with all three of them, so it's time to tackle Agnes and her Betrayed moodlet except that River's energy bar is about zero, so she has to get at least a little sack time. We're under the gun on this because the baby is due in about a day and I'd like to have everyone back on speaking terms by the time she arrives (it's a girl - I peeked and wasn't lying to Belinda). River managed about 3 hours before Simon decides to put in an appearance (can I mention that money spent on a high-quality bed is not wasted?). River hadn't met him yet, but they hit it off famously (Family-Oriented is an awesome trait when kids are involved), River went back to bed, and Simon went back to haunting. Prudence only put in one appearance a few days after the move and I haven't seen her since. Not sure what's happening on that end.
River went back to talk to Agnes. Much apologizing, hand-wringing, and general buttering up later, we finally get the "Kiss and make up" interaction. River and Agnes are up to 92 on their relationship (still RIs), although River now has the Cheater reputation, and the baby is due in three or four hours. We'll keep it in the ABCs, with a McIrish twist on it: Caoimhe (feminine of the Irish equivalent of Kevin) and wait to see what blows up next.
If anyone can tell me how to put up screenies, I'll be happy to illustrate as we go.
Yay for Kevin!
For screenshots, I'm assuming you know how to take them? Then you need a photo hosting program on the internet, upload them, and then link the photos to your posts here.
LOL! Yeah, I can take 'em, just wasn't sure what to do with them other than let them clutter up my hard drive. I've got an Imgur account out there somewhere, so I'll give it a try. Thanks for the tip.
Agnes:
River (the stock haircut was fine for a teen, but looked kind of out of place on a YA):
EDIT: the image URLs didn't embed properly. No idea why, so I just linked them instead. Found and fixed (I think). Grabbed the wrong URL.
With the RI problem resolved for the moment, River delivered a bouncing baby girl (Caoimhe). We went with Good and Artistic as her traits and she did pick up her father's Witch state. Agnes seems to be good with the situation and is constantly dropping actions to go Snuggle or Play With, though I have to kind of force her to change dirty diapers. The two settled down to what I hope will be a long spell of dull domesticity.
The rest of the Crumplebottoms are being their normal chaotic selves. Belinda and Pappy Wolff finally tied the knot and Pappy moved in with Belinda. Their daughter, Casey, is a werewolf and aged up to Toddler yesterday (Sim-time). Beatrice and Annalove Ivy started up a relationship and are now going steady. Whether that happened as a result of SP or one of Belinda's Love Charms is an open question. I suspect the latter since Annalove is also RIs with Bianca. But on the other hand, the Love Charm only boosts the relationship to RI status, so SP probably made them steadies.
Agnes ran into the clan at the consignment shop and we got to watch Belinda tossing around Love Charms like a toddler with a bowl of Spaghetti-Os and then doing it to herself when she ran out of other targets. I'm learning to be pretty fast on the cancel interaction button whenever Belinda is around.
Anyway, Bianca and Dante Morganthe are the proud parents of a son named Eric, born just prior to Caoimhe. He inherited his father's Vampire state, but Dante never seems to be around, at least when I'm looking. I got a message that maybe River and Bianca should bury the hatchet, so to speak. When I checked her relationship panel, Bianca was showing as an Enemy and a quick MC check on Bianca showed the same. This was really strange since they were Friends a few days ago and haven't spoken to each other since. Not even a "Bianca wants to chat" phone call to turn down. Rather than figure it out, I used MC to set them back to Friends and will keep an eye out for a recurrence.
The Crumplebottom household is getting pretty full: Beatrice; Belinda, Pappy, and Casey Crumplebottom-Wolff; and Bianca and Eric. I did remember to install a couple of cribs in the house (and lost some good wishes when I switched households to do it - bummer), so at least the kids have a place to sleep. Beatrice hosted a Spooky Day party, so Agnes was able to mend fences with most of the family:
Agnes crashed after returning from the party, which let her avoid the nightly dirty diaper problem (does she do this on purpose?). River was taking care of that when Prudence decided to make a long overdue appearance:
They hit it off reasonably well, although Prudence hogged the rocking chair while River was trying to do the alternative baby-feeding thing (another one of those mods that we don't talk about) before hitting the sack herself.
The elixir consignment shop turned a bit glitchy with the service Sim disappearing (he just stepped into the LLAMA and never returned). A new one appeared a day or two later, but has had nightly stuck-aging checks ever since. I'm open to suggestions on how to fix that little problem. I probably wouldn't mind so much if I wasn't trying to get my hands on a Witch's Brew potion.
If I keep River slaving away at the Alchemy station, I could probably just have her make it herself, but she hasn't discovered the recipe yet. It's a high-level potion and requires a Toad if I remember correctly. Since neither of them has any Fishing skill, I set Agnes to trying to conjure one (no luck with that yet):
With things moving along so smoothly, Agnes proposed going steady with River, which she accepted. Later that night, when Agnes was once again nowhere to be found at dirty diaper time, Simon put in an appearance (and hogged the rocking chair - does this run in the family?). River took the opportunity to get his thoughts on making her relationship with Agnes a bit more permanent, which Simon thought was a truly capital idea:
And that's the news from Moonlight Falls where all of the women are strong, all of the men are good looking, and all of the children are above average. Wait, that's Lake Wobegone.
Agnes' cheekbones went all kinds of hinky and I've never run into this before. I'm not using custom sliders aside from the ones that came with NRaas' version of Create-a-Sim. When I look in CAS, use the Change Appearance interaction on a mirror, or open the Stylist in MC, her cheeks are quite rounded. She's smack in the middle on the thinness slider and hasn't chugged any Lean and Mean potions. I have her use the Hunger Charm, Bladder Charm, and Hygiene Charm on herself, especially when she's cranking out lengthy books, but she otherwise eats meals at the kitchen table like everyone else. Any ideas on the cause?
Persistence pays off and after many, many attempts, Agnes finally managed to conjure a Toad.
It's not doing us a lot of good at the moment since neither of them knows the Witch's Brew recipe, but we've managed to learn all of the recipes through Level 8, and I know it's not one that you have to purchase, so it's only a matter of keeping at it. In the interim, Agnes popped wishes to write a Romance novel and a Best-Seller, so started knocking out one. Well, knocking out a Romance novel... we'll have to see on the Best-Seller part.
Belinda aged up to Adult. Wonder if that will tone down the Love Charms. Probably not.
Agnes popped the "Oh My Ghost" opportunity. I accepted it, but haven't quite decided whether we want to add Simon and Prudence to the household or just have them show up as the occasional unexpected visitor. If I send one of them off to learn Fishing, Agnes' Cooking skill is almost high enough to learn the Ambrosia recipe and her Gardening is already high enough to grow the ingredients.
It was River's idea to get Simon's permission to marry, but since I don't want to go change the thread title to The McIrish Saga, it was left to Agnes to pop the question and River accepted. A little celebrating, a good night's sleep, and one botched Bianca party later (just as the guests were showing up, she took off for work), it was time for Caoimhe to age up to Toddler. Now that she's all unswaddled, I can see that she picked up her mother's hair and eye color. I already knew about her father's Witch state, but I had to grab traits from River (Artistic and Good) since the only ones I could remember from Bianca were Flirty, Childish, Snob, and Commitment Issues, which aren't available to Infants.
River isn't making much progress on her LTW (Professional Author), but she's cranking out paintings that are bringing in over $1000 each at the consignment store and I haven't asked her to paint anything; she just does it on her own when she's not selected. Agnes is the one who needs to be painting. She hit Level 10 in Writing some time back, but still needs Painting in order to hit her LTW (Illustrious Author).
Simon put in another appearance. River announced the engagement and he was good with it.
While those two were chit-chatting, Agnes developed the Nauseous (from Unknown Causes) moodlet, so I guess celebrating the engagement had some unexpected consequences. I'll blame the mod... yeah, that's the ticket; the mod did it. It's another girl, by the way.
Ignoring Bianca's suggestion about throwing a Bachelorette Party, River and Agnes did the private wedding thing and Agnes "adopted" Caoimhe (I used MC to remove Bianca as a parent and added Agnes in her place).
Bianca called to chat with River, which reminded me that we hadn't heard anything from Beatrice in a while. When I opened the menu to call her, I found a "Take to the Hospital" interaction. I've never seen that one before, so clicked it, which sent River running (literally) across town.
Anyone have any idea why this might happen? Agnes and River have a car. It gathers dust in the garage because they both prefer to use their brooms, but it's there and River does know how to drive; she used the car before I bought her a Broom. And there are always taxis for those who don't have brooms, cars, horses, or whatever. So why does the game make her hoof it? No matter, River made it to the hospital just in time for Beatrice to come walking out with her new daughter, Sierra, and got the "It's a Girl!" moodlet.
That was a bit of a surprise. Beatrice and Annalove Ivy must have done a bit more than become steadies a few days ago. Sierra has no occult state (Annalove is Human), but she is Brave and Virtuoso.
This will be an interesting family situation as Beatrice should transition to Elder within the next day or two, which means that Grim will come for Beatrice about the time that Sierra ages up to Teen. Fortunately we do not have to worry about kids being taken by the social worker. We got the announcement that Annalove and Beatrice are now engaged (this is SP doing its thing; Annalove never put in an appearance), so either Annalove or Belinda will be the Adult in the household when Grim makes his appearance. And even if that doesn't come to pass, I'll add Sierra to Agnes and River's household before I let a social worker have her.
While we waited for the new arrival in our household, a bit of redecorating was in order. The room we had been using as a nursery is only big enough to hold one crib, but we're going to need two, so the television, couch, and such went into the nursery (no room for the foosball table, but no one was using it anyway), while the nursery stuff went out into the parlor area right at the top of the stairs. I'd call it a "man cave" if there were any men in the house, but Simon occasionally likes to watch the Romance channel when he makes his appearances in the middle of the night and I'd hate to deprive him of his entertainment.
Agnes took advantage of the slack time to put her Family-Oriented trait to work and taught Caoimhe to walk (which cleared a wish for River). River took the opportunity to engage in a bit of recreation and learned to snowboard and ice skate. While leaving Caoimhe to her own devices for a bit, Agnes went to town on the easel and brought her Painting skill to 9. Only one skill level left to complete her LTW.
And about 2:30am, the baby decides to make her appearance. River was not impressed and kept trying to go to bed. Agnes didn't appear to be exceptionally excited, either, but made a few funny faces.
"River! We're having a baby!!!"
"That's nice. Let me finish my shower and I'll be right there."
"River! The baby's coming! Oh! Ooo! <breathe, breathe> Hey, I just had an idea for a painting. Large portrait, maybe? Nah! Medium landscape? Yeah, that'll work. Oooo! Urrgh! <breathe, breathe> "Albino Llama in a Blizzard" ought to be a good title. Ahrrg! Ooof! <huff, huff>"
"Oh, get serious."
"Yes, dear. Hey River! It's a girl!"
"That's nice. I'm going to bed."
Brianna did not inherit the Witch state, but I assigned her one trait from River (Artistic) and one from Agnes (Loner).
That night, Prudence decided to put in another appearance (after building an igloo first)
She went upstairs and hogged the rocking chair again, got up, rocked some more, got up, rocked some more... What is it about that rocking chair? Anyway, she just sat there all night watching her grandbabies and giving that rocking chair a workout. She didn't hustle back to the Netherworld (or wherever it is that Ghosts go when they aren't busy haunting) at dawn, so Agnes gave her a report on her granddaughters.
Several days of domestic dullness later, Caoimhe has leared to walk, talk, use the potty, mastered the pegs and xylophone, had every Toddler book in the house read to her and is generally ready to age up (one of the better reasons to play a Long game). Brianna, well, Brianna just kind of eats, sleeps, and dirties her diaper. She'll age up in a day or so regardless of whether I buy a birthday cake or not. River is still working on Mastering Alchemy, but we had to resort to a skill book to do it. Agnes has almost mastered the Painting skill, which will complete her LTW. Her latest Masterpiece seems to be a plug for a Bioware game.
A couple of days later we had an unexpected visit from both Simon and Prudence. The Visiting Ghost music started playing and I heard a "plop!" River and Agnes were busy trying to get the girls into their cribs, so Prudence was already inside by the time I got the camera downstairs. I didn't think much about it, but I caught a glimpse of something strange out in the yard. It was Simon, laying in the snow next to a snow angel (the "plop!" was Prudence making it). "Oh great," I thought, "He's frozen. How do you thaw out a ghost?" But when I clicked on him, I couldn't get any interactions. After a minute or so, he stood up and came upstairs. Prudence had already grabbed the rocking chair (again), but stood up to let him have it. Almost as soon as he sat down, she collapsed on the floor.
This was getting strange, but then it dawned on me: they're both Cowards! Prudence showed up first, so when Simon appeared, he saw a ghost and fainted. Then when he came upstairs, Prudence saw a ghost and fainted. That puts a definite crimp on the Oh My Ghost opportunity - they'll be constantly frightening each other to death.
Dragon Valley finally showed up in my Store purchase history (bought it last week before I knew that the Store was borked). On the whole, I don't think it was worth the money (and you have to pay in money rather than SimPoints), but it did have an outfit that worked wonderfully for River since I've never been able to hit the right shade of green for any of her stuff. I don't know what to do about clipping issues where the seat of the pants clips through the bottom of the top, though. Anyway, unless you're really into the Celtic/Middle Ages thing, don't bother with the Gold pack.
Brianna aged up to Toddler, so it is once again time to go through teaching to walk, talk, and use the potty.
In the meantime, the search for ingredients has helped Agnes to raise her Spellcasting to Level 9 and about halfway to 10. Each casting doesn't add much to the skill, so we tried having her upgrade stuff around the house, starting with River's computer (lost count of the number of times it broke - cheap Simerican products). I still need to sit her down for one more decent painting session to complete her LTW, though.
Bianca aged up to Adult.
A couple more days of dull domesticity and Brianna knows how to walk and is about halfway potty trained. River continues to work on her Alchemy, and Agnes completed her LTW by hitting Level 10 in Painting. The funny part is that she's done this particular painting a couple of times before. Maybe practice makes perfect or maybe we need another mod that prevents artists from painting the same things over and over again? Either way, I won't turn down the week-long +75 mood boost.
The whole family spent most of the day at the Winter Festival. River cleared a wish to do 20 snowboard stunts that I'd never got around to cancelling earlier
while Agnes worked on her ice skating.
The girls just played with their Imaginary Friend dolls (those things are NOT coming out of inventory into the regular world - there is weird and there is creepy and IFs make creepy look normal). I found Beatrice and Annalove enjoying a little afternoon delight in an igloo that someone made. Agnes must have got up on the wrong side of the igloo or something because she took exception to something River said shortly thereafter.
And with the arrival of Snowflake Day, it was time to break out the decorations. A good half-hour of searching later, I finally found the Christmas Tree. Whodathot that Christmas Trees would be stashed under Lighting rather than Decor. Silly me for expecting the Store to tag things logically.
Fun story, btw.
The goings-on in Moonlight Falls are better than any soap opera. For Snowflake Day, Daydream Ivy-Van Gould gave divorce papers to Tristan Ivy-Van Gould after she caught him red-handed in the Igloo of Delights with Suraya Younan-MacDuff. I say better than a soap opera because Jules Younan-MacDuff is Daydream's RI, so it looks like she caught Tristan before Tristan could catch her.
And then they all stood around and listened to Rainflower Ivy lay down some jams. "Music hath charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak," it seems. Less trite than "standing around and singing Kumbayah" at any rate.
For Snowflake Day, Agnes and River got matching Zoomsweeper Pegasi, all tricked out (cuz we don't use the p-word around here) in their favorite colors. I had kept them with the slower-than-molasses-in-January Classic model up until now because they had to spend more time on it in order to get anywhere, so worked better for raising their Broom-Riding. But now that they're both Level 10, it doesn't matter and it made a nice present.
In response to an opportunity from Belinda, Agnes sat down to crank out another Romance novel (third book in a row that did not turn out to be a Best-Seller, so I cancelled that wish). While twiddling my thumbs waiting for her to finish, I took the opportunity to count up all of her positive moodlets and it came out to +225 (including +20 for Eternally Faitful and +75 for fulfilling her LTW). Beats the heck out of Grumpy anyday. While she did that, River went to the obligatory family get-together where a good time was had by all, including the dog.
Remember what I said about it was only because Tristan didn't catch Daydream first? Uhhm, yeah. Fortunately, Spring was only a couple of days away and the Igloo of Delights went away (until someone gets around to making another next Winter).
And now that she can finally make one herself, River finds the Witch's Brew potion at Allistair's and a dilemma presents itself. Does River remain a normal human in a town full of supernaturals or does she give in to the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mindset? I'm not a big fan of werewolves or vampires, but we now have potions for becoming a Witch, a Fairy, and a Genie. Fairy is least tempting because of the Long game setting and the fact that I've played a lot of Fairies (been there, done that). Witch is the most tempting simply because all of the other females in the Crumplebottom family are Witches. Well, except Brianna, but we have an extra elixir for that if she decides she wants to. Genie is somewhere in the middle for various reasons. Something to think on.
In the meantime, Caoimhe's birthday was Sunday. Rather than mess with the calendar, we just did the birthday cake thing and get her set up as a Child over the weekend so that she could start school first thing Monday. Since I took both of her starting traits from River, I took the Family-Oriented trait from Agnes. I'm thinking it ought to make for a nice, but insignificant, inheritable trait to pass down if I decide to go the legacy route later.
And while I'm thinking along the lines of heritability, the idea of passing the Witch state down through the female line is appealing. But it means that I need to go add the Witch state to Casey (making her a hybrid Werewolf-Witch) and Sierra to keep it level; I don't think Eric and Mortimer Goth are concerns. More to think about.
Spring finally arrived, so the holiday decorations went into Family Storage while the usual decor came back out. And with Spring came allergies, so River headed off to the hospital for an allergy shot while Agnes got down and dirty with her paintbrush. It must be a new take on the Emperor's New Clothes with not seeing it being a measure of one's lack of artistic acumen because the critics thought it was Brilliant.
Belinda and Pappy are expecting again, so yet another cousin to hang from the family tree. While hunting insects for an opportunity, River ran into Dahlia Goodfellow at Allistair's and used an elixir to give her back her Fairy state, but I had to do a bit of cheating to get her age (161 days) and life stage to match up again.
And with the arrival of Spring, it's time to get Agnes back into the garden. I made some beds for her in the Fall, but she didn't plant anything because Winter was just around the corner. Now that Spring is here, she's got a boatload of Special seeds that her conjuring produced and can now do something with them. I know that one of them is a Plasma Fruit (the pulsing kind of gives it away), three turned out to be Money Trees, and the slow growth rate on the rest means we'll have to wait for another week or so to see.
River got a message that Fiona is getting old and won't be around much longer (she passed the next day). Cornelia won't be too far behind, so maybe we'll just take the girls to Sunset Valley later so we can collect both tombstones at the same time. There is enough unused space on the home lot (and enough room on one side to add a lot) that a family graveyard would fit both the space and the town's atmosphere.
Who's that standing next to the snowman in pic #2? Isn't she cold?
Suraya Younan-MacDuff ("the other woman"). She's a nicely done townie. She starts as a Teen with Good Sense of Humor, Frugal, Easily Impressed, and Heavy Sleeper and then picks up a random trait when she ages up to YA. I'm not sure what she picked up in this game (didn't look). As for being cold, probably. I think the outfit is from the Master Suite SP and is her sleepwear outfit, but the game doesn't immediately put Sims into outerwear after exiting an igloo.
As for Seasons, the Steam Summer Sale should be kicking off later this week. If you've got the base game on Steam, Seasons (or any other EP/SP for that matter) will probably be in the $5 to $10 range at some point during the sale.