Tuesday, July 7, 2015

I Hart Space! - Chapter 2: Written in the Stars, Part I


Welcome back to I Hart Space!, now solidly in the second generation. This chapter is written by Roxanne. Continue on to read about Andromeda's life as heiress . . .


  
When we left off with Kristina's wonderful chapter, Andromeda and her brothers had grown into teens. Being the only girl in a legacy with a matriarchal succession law, Andromeda is automatically the heiress. The family and the lot made their own separate journeys to my computer, but once they recombined, we were ready to go.
  

Everyone is present and accounted for, except for Aries. Where could he be?


Well, he ran straight into the bath, of course. Being insane, Aries is prone to doing things a little differently. At least the house is broken in now.


Let me reintroduce you to Andromeda, our heiress. She currently has the traits cheerful and active, as well as the fabulously wealthy aspiration. Consequently, she currently does about four things: sleep, go to school, go to work, and paint. Luckily, her father Jorge is a master painter, and her mother Galaxy, our founder, is pretty darn good herself as she is working on the Painter Extraordinaire aspiration for her second one. I just have the three of them paint constantly and Andromeda sells it all. Luckily, I've had the great fortune (no pun intended) to attempt this one before in the second generation. In The Gregory Legacy, it took most of my heiresses's adult life, but I plan to finish much quicker this time around now that I know the ropes. I'd really like to finish before Andromeda has kids but I always say that with these aspirations, so we'll have to see. It's certainly an ambitious aspiration for the second generation, but then Andromeda does come from a family of go-getters.


The other people in the house are the younger twins, Leo (in green) and Orion (in white), and we can't forget Andromeda's twin, Aries . . . who is doing his insane thing here. This is the four coming home from school on their first day on my computer. I imagine it goes a little something like this:

Andromeda: "Yup, I'm bored already. Wonder how my portfolio's doing . . ."
Leo: "I had a good chance card! School is awesome!"
Aries: "There's someone watching us at all times, controlling our movements from afar. I'm not crazy; it's true!"
Orion: "I had a bad chance card. School sucks."


Galaxy finished the bodybuilder aspiration under Kristina's direction, including maxing her body skill, but she still lags in her career, currently being stuck around level 7. Part of that is the mentoring fitness daily task which . . . Kristina wasn't kidding, guys. It is the worst. Galaxy also seems really slow to build performance, even when I send her to work confident, with daily task done, and set to working hard. It's odd. At least she's perky about it.


Looking for boys - or maybe some friends - but mostly boys - Andromeda heads to the park. She does not find any eligible teen or young adult boys, but she does find a friend in Cassandra Goth, who, as our friend Ashley pointed out, looks a lot like Andromeda. They're both slight little raven-haired beauties who look good in black and glasses, and the girls seem to have a kinship beyond that. They are very quickly good friends and gossiping about why both of the park hobos are angry and stomping around that day, which doesn't seem to amuse the one that is overhearing them. That is some very fancy hair for someone that sleeps on benches, by the way. A+ hair game, park hobo!


Life at home is continuing about the same as always. The kids go to school, the elders work, all of the Harts hug each other, and Galaxy does random workouts in her pjs in the kitchen. Time to shake things up a little.


I start by introducing a new house, Hart Observatory. It's very unfinished at this stage, partially because it took most of their money, so we'll wait to do a tour until it's worthwhile. You'll notice the name is because I stuck an observatory up on the roof. How could I Hart Space not have an observatory?! You'll see in the backgrounds of pictures that the inside is very sparsely decorated, but I promise I do decorate it eventually. With that settled, it's time to send Andromeda back on the manhunt.


"You girls sure are pretty."
"And you're an adult. Not even a YA. So scram."
"Aw, man."

Everyone, meet Creeper. He pops up here and there later on.


Andromeda does the good friend thing and leaves poor Cassandra to talk to Creeper while she plays Sea Monster with some random kid. All of the teens and YAs running around seem to be playables, which is annoying. I felt like trying to find a spouse without seeding Legacy Loves since this is a new save and should have some bachelors, so I sent Andromeda to the nearby nightclub to see if she could find any eligible male teens or YAs. Like, seriously, any at this point.


And that is the story of how Andromeda ended up on the sidewalk cloudgazing with a man with a unibrow. Unibrow here is a YA with a not entirely terrible personality, and he is the only non-playable male teen or YA I've run into so far, so he's kind of the best thing she's got going unless someone else shows up.


No, Creeper, not you. Creeper, no creeping!

"Aw, man!"


"Hey, your plumbbob matches my shirt. Mind if I sit down?"
"Oh my good, generous lord. Finally! Yes! Please have a seat!"


I didn't recognize Gavin here, he is a YA, he has a great personality, and he is BEAUTIFUL, so Andromeda and Gavin start a little informal non-date date. Please notice - as I later did reviewing my pictures and almost choked laughing - that Unibrow is now literally shut out of the proceedings.


Andromeda still has a few teen days left but I have aging off outside my main house, so Gavin will definitely still be a YA when she ages up. They have a fantastic time and even had the option to be best friends by the end of their night, even though I didn't choose it yet. The only downside is that Gavin has the same eye and hair color as Andromeda, but so did Unibrow so I'm not going to let that stop me. They even have the same glasses. It's destiny!


Andromeda apparently caught some cooties from hanging around all those boys and passed them off to her brother Orion. A quick sip of medicine fixed them both right up.


Andromeda returns to the grind, gulping down moodlet solvers to keep her at the easel longer, and easily completes her second tier of the aspiration. She also continues working, and keeps calling Gavin in her brief spare time to keep the relationship up.


With a bunch of masterpieces painted by her parents and her own rising skill level paintings, Andromeda is making great progress on the third tier. There's only a day or two left in her teen stage at this point.


After many thankless days, Galaxy is eventually promoted to level 8 of the bodybuilder career, earning her this spiffy tracksuit. Since Andromeda's usually busy and it takes about 3 workouts to do fitness mentoring 100%, it's awfully convenient that Galaxy has three sons. The boys are mentored daily, and active Orion loves it. Cheerful Leo will put up with it. However, Aries is not impressed with the whole thing, but tough! Galaxy is going to max this career!


Birthday time finally comes for the older twins. As usual, Jorge whipped up a couple of cakes, and the whole family is there celebrating. Happy birthday, Andromeda and Aries!


Andromeda is as beautiful as ever. She picks up her final preordained trait of being self-assured, just like her mother.


And Aries adds hot-headed to snob and insane, because his personality really needed just a bit more edge.


The party is a fun moment for everyone to gather around. They're usually all busy doing various things to support Galaxy's career, Andromeda's aspiration, or the day-to-day business of school and home life, so it's nice to get them all together. As soon as this little get-together is over, Andromeda is going to call up her future husband and invite him over so they can flirt for real now that they're both YAs.


Before that, though, Galaxy and Jorge share a quiet hug. They successfully raised an heiress to adulthood, and she's already very successful. They've done a great job as the founding couple. Hug well deserved.


"Okay, what gives? What is Unibrow doing here? Where's Gavin?"

Well, you see, it turns out that, when I went to make sure Gavin wouldn't bring in money when he moved in, I couldn't find him in the out-of-world households. So I looked and looked, and wouldn't you know it, he is part of the Roomies household in Oasis Springs. A playable. After all that, getting my hopes up and everything, he's a damn playable that I just didn't recognize. Grr.


However, before Gavin showed up, Unibrow and Andromeda did have a good friendship going that I played down for the sake of the story. It didn't take much to bring that friendship up and kindle a romance. I suppose, if she's going to marry him, I should probably stop calling him Unibrow, especially since I'm sending him to manage outfits as soon as he moves in to manage those eyebrows. Everyone, meet Collin Baxter.


Collin moves in with no money, as per the rules. He's actually kind of cute with a little less hair all over his face. He is a gloomy yet active bro, and he has the Outdoor Retreat aspiration, Outdoor Enthusiast. Guess that means we have some trips to Granite Falls in our future. Active will fit right in to this household, but gloomy is, as I already know, a bit of a pain, and bro has me raising my eyebrows a bit. We'll see how that plays out. Collin has black hair and the darkest eyes, just like Andromeda, and his skin color is not that different from hers, but they do have dissimilar faces, so the variety in the kids will have to come from the shape of their features. He actually came fairly well-dressed, so I left his clothes mostly the same and just fixed his hair, eyebrows, and facial hair.


Collin and Andromeda head back to the nightclub where their whole thing started, and really work on their romance. By the end of a gold medal date, they've had their first kiss, become boyfriend and girlfriend, and had a great time.


"So then he was like, 'No, you say it first,' and I was like, 'No, you!' Oh, he's so dreamy!"
"You know what? I just decided . . . I'm an adult, and I am out of here!"

Good call, Aries. With a farewell to his smitten twin, Aries leaves for a house in the community. His brothers will join him there eventually.


The next day, after spending a night in Aries' former bed (since I didn't have the rooms set up for another double yet), Collin decides to make things official and proposes to Andromeda.

This is down by the edge of the Oakenstead lot, by the way, so they didn't even have to leave home for this scenic shot. Nice, huh?


Needless to say, Andromeda says yes. They've been great friends since they met at the nightclub, and it took little effort on my part to get them to full friend and romance bars. Their love was truly written in the stars. <3


Since Aries moved out, Collin has to pull his weight . . . literally. Galaxy needs to mentor people, and Collin is just sitting around, so sometimes he "pushes the limits" and does double workouts to help her more since he doesn't have a job yet. But enough workout talk . . . we have a wedding to attend!


The majority of the guests showed up all at once together. The rest trickled in later. The original wedding party seen here was reasonably coordinated, though I don't quite like a black wedding dress for Andromeda, even if she does look dramatic in it.


She feels pretty good with a quick change, too. Now we're ready for the ceremony. This wedding is held on a lot that I made. It's called Love Blooms Wedding Venue. It's a rather large lot, but there's several places in Newcrest that it fits, and that's where I put it. It's available in the Gallery if you're interested. Search for 22Taube, with a capital T. Enough self-promotion now. Let's get going.


The main downside to the lot that I haven't figured out yet is that no one sits for the ceremony. I've tried benches and I tried these Luxury Party Stuff chairs, and in both cases, everyone stands.

Anyway, guests include Andromeda's entire family, Cassandra, Creeper, and a very bummed-looking Gavin in the background there. Andromeda had met quite a few people on her forays out into the world, so she invited a few other people, including blue-shirt-lady on the right, but this is all that managed to attend the ceremony.


Everything was going great (except everyone's legs were getting tired from standing, I would imagine). Andromeda and Collin said their vows and exchanged rings. It was such a sweet moment.


And then the other downside of the lot appeared in the form of a crasher. Because of how you have to classify the lot and what it requires, Love Blooms is a nightclub, so random people will show up. I can't help that. It's a community lot thing. Of course the crasher, who is a playable YA I might add, apparently knows Aries and struck up a conversation while the ceremony was still going on. Who else would carry on an animated discussion in the middle of his sister's wedding but Aries? Gavin and Creeper disapprove.


Anyway, the wedding continued just fine regardless, and finally concluded with a very passionate kiss between the new couple.


Aries: "And then I told them about this person that controls us. They said I was crazy."
Crasher: "No way, man! Tell me more!"
Galaxy: "I'm going to kill him. Someone hold me back." *eyelid twitches*


Andromeda and Collin shared dainty bites of some invisible cake. Ah, gotta love those glitches.


"STRANGER DANGER!"

No, that is literally Galaxy's moodlet at this moment. Her loner trait made the party pretty hard on her. Although Andromeda had plenty of friends and more crashers showed up after the ceremony, Galaxy didn't know anyone but her family, and she was not pleased.


The newlyweds, however, were having a blast. It was a fun party and had earned a gold medal pretty quickly, which Eliza Pancakes appears to approve of as she photobombs.

 
"Wait, it wasn't me! I swear, I'm innocent!"
 
What wasn't you, Aries? Now I'm worried.
 

Okay, Aries was lying, because he was talking to Galaxy and somehow made her very angry. Not wanting any more hijinks or to lose our founder to a rage-induced heart attack, I decided we had had just about enough party and called it. Like I said, it was a gold medal, Andromeda and Collin were successfully married, and I had a good time, as did most of the guests. I'd call that a success, even if it did rank as one of the worst days in poor Galaxy's life.


Back home, Galaxy retires to calm down, and the newlyweds head up to the roof for a little time alone. I love the views. So pretty.


And it just wouldn't be right to have this shiny new observatory without our heiress and her husband celebrating their first woohoo in it.


They are looking pretty pleased with themselves afterwards. Definitely happy, but who wouldn't be? Andromeda appears to be thanking her lucky star that she ended up with Unibrow after all. Who knew he would make her so happy when he first appeared with his furry face and rolled-up pink jeans?
 
The only question now is: when will we see some babies? Well, it's still going to be a while, so check back next time to see Andromeda and Collin work on their aspirations, including taking a honeymoon to Granite Falls, see the younger twins grow up and move out, and see if Galaxy can max that career before she kicks it. And possibly babies, but no promises. ;) Thanks for reading, and be sure to check in with Kristina and me at SiMania!


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