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

Final post for this chapter! Yay! Last time we saw Eris grow up, but Ceres still needs to teenify, as does their brother Pluto, and then I'll be passing the family off to Kristina. Keep reading for the final installment of this generation . . .

Thanks for sticking with this long chapter. :) Now, let's check in on the family . . .

Everyone was wrapping up loose ends and being rather productive. Collin hit level 10 in gardening and has several superb plants.

Ceres finished the Whiz Kid aspiration, meaning she is now Socially and Intellectually Gifted. That also means that between the two girls, they completed all four of the childhood aspirations.

Finally, Andromeda reached level 10 in programming and made a video game called I Hart Space! I imagine it's a platformer that takes place in space and you collect hearts. Something like that. Yes, I know. I'm very creative. Anyway, good job, team! Way to max those skills!

"Ceres, I'd like to teach you a valuable lesson . . ."
"Okay, but you're only like three days older than me, so I kind of wonder how much you could possibly know more than me at this point."
"You know what? Never mind."

Meanwhile Galaxy dejectedly eats a piece of pink cake from Andromeda's birthday all those many years ago. I didn't force her to, I want to note. She's on almost full autonomy and she picked pink cake for breakfast.

"Sigh. When you're 170 like I am, you can . . ."

Yes, Galaxy. I think we get the point.

I got notices that the kids were back from school. Pluto and Eris were on the driveway, where the portal is, but Ceres was nowhere to be found. So I right-clicked on her and found her all the way back here, up on a hill behind the house. What the heck, Ceres?

"Just increasing my visibility for that heiress decision. Don't I look nice back here?"

Meanwhile, our other potential heiress is "laughing maniacally" in the driveway because she needs to be disliked by four sims for her aspiration and I'm going to let her finish that on my computer. Alice Spencer-Kim still hates her, so that's good, I guess. For these purposes.

"Mweh. I'm the mailman. Dopey dope. Look at me deliver bills. Ehhh."
"What did you say to me?"
"Oh, if I was talking to you, I'd use much smaller words."

Dislike #2 accomplished.

"Eris, that is not how we raised you to treat service sims. They're just doing their job!"
"It's nothing personal, grandma. Now how do I solve for X again in this problem?"

Pluto finished his Rambunctious Scamp aspiration. Good for you, Pluto! See? I don't totally leave this guy out of everything. He's an A student and Physically Gifted. The little guy's doing just fine.

Noooooooo! I heard that horrible music that let me know it was Galaxy's time and went to check on her, and sure enough, she was busy laying down in that most pitiful way, but where was Grim?

Apparently, he was in the bathroom next door admiring his robe. I thought he might be glitched because he really was in here a while, but eventually he left and went to collect Galaxy.

"Hmm. Says here this woman was loved by many. Wonder where her family is."

Unfortunately, Galaxy went in the wee hours of the morning, so everyone else was in bed two floors up and totally missed her death. It was really sad to me. Not so much to them. That long-lived trait was really pretty amazing, and I had kind of been hoping Galaxy might survive to travel back to Kristina's computer. She only had to make it a few more days, but alas, even the long-lived have to go when their time comes.

Galaxy was the mother of four, grandmother of five, wife of Jorge, and an awesome sim in her own right. She founded a legacy, maxed an incredibly difficult career, maxed two skills, and completed her aspiration. She was adored by her family and never failed despite mostly being on autonomy for much of her later years. Truly a successful sim. You will be missed, Galaxy.

Jorge senses a disturbance and actually haunts at night for once. He looks rather sad. I guess even if you're already dead, you still wish happiness and long life for your loved ones.

Still, Galaxy and Jorge are together now. Since I doubt ghosts transfer with lots even if the urns do, this is where they will remain - together forever.

And Jorge pays tribute to his wife by eating the last piece of pink cake in the fridge during the only time he's ever entered the house, as far as I can tell. He really is an odd ghost. I hoped Galaxy would haunt at last once before I have to pass the house over, but this was our last ghost sighting for this generation.

But enough with all this sentimentality! Grim is still hanging around the house, playing with our toys, and even hangs around until it is light out, at which point Eris wakes up and I have what I consider to be a genius idea.

"Bluh bluh bluh. I'm the Grim Reaper. I steal people's loved ones. Aren't I evil? Heh. I'll show you true evil."
"What is your problem, girl? And where were you when your grandmother died?"
"What's that now? Oh, never mind. I have some more stuff to say to you, mister!"

Eris proceeded to pick and prod at Grim, and I crossed my fingers that he wouldn't poof away before she accomplished her goal. I was really, really sad about Galaxy - I hate sim deaths - but this cheered me up quite a bit. Luckily, Grim was just too engaged by Eris's constant litany of insults, and he soon disliked her, making him the third sim to do so, and yes, it counted!

They then "found common ground" and made up a bit. I don't even want to know what their common ground is.

Apparently, his heart-to-heart with Eris following her verbal assault put Grim in a helpful mood, because he proceeded to run around the house, putting away the Purple Protector and cleaning our disgusting kitchen sink. Then, finally, he disappeared.

Soon there was another Hart Children Dance Party going on out back, which can only mean one thing: birthday time again!

This time the party was held on the patio, and a lot more of the sims managed to congregate in the right place, and I even remembered to dress the immediate family in their party clothes this time. Finally Ceres will be growing up and we'll get a look at our other potential heiress.

Although Galaxy's presence was missed, her immediate family managed to muster up some encouragement for little Ceres when she went to blow out the candles, and Aries and Gavin even joined in.

And, again, the birthday girl is nowhere near the candles. However, she did blow them out somehow.

And yet she did not grow up. I got no notification and Ceres was still running around (well, actually, attempting to head to bed because it was so late) as a child. Time to try again. Andromeda rushed into the house to bake another cake quickly, since the other one had already been set upon by the guests. It was getting quite late in the party counter and everyone was exhausted.

In fact, by the time Ceres did grow up, she had a nice, orange plumbbob to show for it. The pink cake that Andromeda baked is already missing a piece because Aries swooped in, grabbed a piece, and made a run for it out of the picture before Ceres was even done twirling. That's dedication to picture-ruining.

Sorry for the darkness of the pictures, but the patio didn't have many lights. Anyway, in the last small time chunk of the party, they managed to actually act like they were having a party and utilize the seating area off to the side of the pool, which pleased me mightily.

Ceres, meanwhile, drank a moodlet solver as she was about to pass out due to being up way past her bedtime. She looks quite a bit like Andromeda without makeup, in my opinion. They even have similar body types, while Eris got Collin's more lanky frame.

And here's a shot of the gen. 2 Hart boys, since it's the last we'll see of them. Have fun in your little house, boys! Thanks for all the laughs.

Andromeda's friends helped distract Ceres from doing her homework, and eventually the party timer ran out and people went home, leaving us with another crappy dresser for another gold medal party. Then I sent Ceres to the mirror because that dress was just so not her.

Here's our made-over Ceres! She has an interesting mouth and looks incredibly different from Eris, but is still very pretty.

Ceres picked up the clumsy trait as a teen, so I put her in flats just in case she stumbles. She also acquired the Nerd Brain aspiration, so I just had to put her in the "pi ala mode" t-shirt. Blue isn't really her color (I like to put her in pink and yellow generally), but it works.

Looks like Ceres herself approves of the new look. Gotta get those teenage selfies.

Because of the moodlet solver, Ceres didn't need to sleep after the party, so she worked on reading 3 books for her aspiration. One of them was read in the nursery for some reason. That was a little odd, but at least she got them done.

Then, everyone else headed for work or school and Ceres was home alone for a whole hour! Oh, the tragedy! For some reason, I guess because she must have grown up after midnight, it said she wasn't expected at school that day in her panel. Collin headed to work an hour before her siblings came home, and after all that reading and an hour by herself, Ceres' social bar was getting low and the lip wibbles came out. Luckily, Eris and Pluto soon came home and Ceres was able to follow them around, spamming them with socials until her bar was green again.

Andromeda came home a little later with a promotion to level 5 of the tech guru career, which means she completed the Computer Whiz aspiration, her third. Way to go, Andromeda!

Her new aspiration is Successful Lineage, so Pluto got to be read to for two hours as is usual for these family aspirations. We are getting very near to his birthday, which will be the end of my turn.

"Hey! You stay away! I've heard about the way you treat mail carriers!"
"Hey! I've heard about the way you treat mail carriers!"
"Are you mocking me?!"
"Are you mocking me?!"

I don't know why we have so very many mail carriers running around in the neighborhood (Ceres is friends with two others besides the two that Eris has picked on), but they make great fodder for Eris's disliked status because I really do resent the bills, even if I do have to admit that doesn't make any of them deserve this.

With a final "yell at," Eris has made four sims dislike her, and completes that objective for her aspiration. The rest of that level requires her to be an adult, so that's all I can do with her from here.

She's quite delighted with herself and cackles over her yogurt parfait. Eris is very good at being evil.

"No matter how many mailmen you piss off, you're still my little baby!"
"Aw, thanks, Daddy!"

This legacy, as was pointed out in comments on SiMania, has a dual theme currently: evil and insults, or good and hugs? Hard to decide.

Eris got a lot of face time because of her aspiration and because she grew up earlier, but let's not forget about Ceres. She is working away on her Nerd Brain aspiration, and that includes doing useful things like fixing the sink.

Andromeda's response to having two teen girls is to take more pictures. You can never have enough pictures!

See? Hardly enough. We added portraits of each girl, a picture of the two of them together as teens, and a couple of small, dark selfies that Andromeda took for whims and has been carrying around in her inventory forever.

This is our final main portrait wall. Which girl will be continuing the legacy? It's still up for grabs at this point!

And the final children's picture wall, just for posterity.

"I don't feel so good!"

The salad I told Pluto to eat apparently expired right before he finished it. Boy, did I feel bad about that. He was nauseous and too uncomfortable to do anything useful for a few hours afterwards.

"So, Pluto, what do you think?"
"Of your scrambled eggs? Looks better than what I ate for breakfast."
"No, silly. My outfit! Awesome, right?"
"I will never understand teenage girls. Never."

Speaking of teenage girls, Eris is apparently this family's designated mourner. As a child, she always wanted to go mourn Jorge. Now, she's always trying to slip away to mourn Galaxy. Because that produces a sad moodlet, I try to redirect her energies, such as having her honor her grandmother's memory by swimming like Galaxy always used to do.

However, I can't stop her every time. Oh, this gets me so bad. We miss you, Galaxy!

"So little block, what do you want to be, hmm?"

On a more positive note, Ceres is working on her handiness skill. She just needs a few more logic points to complete the second level of her aspiration.

Although they're in competition for heiress, the girls get along great. They are best friends, after all. Whichever one gets it, I'm sure the other will be happy for her. These two don't compare themselves, and neither should we.

Or maybe we should. Just a little comparison shot of their faces. It's interesting, because they don't seem to share any facial features except maybe cheekbones, yet it's obvious that they each got traits from both their mom and their dad. I find the genetics to be the most interesting part of the game for me. Both girls are lovely and would be a great heiress, though.

The family whiles away the time until Pluto's birthday, which comes up very soon. Unfortunately for Pluto, I'm sick of parties and he is a spare, so he'll just get a cake in the kitchen.

Still, his family is there to make it as happy a birthday as possible. Happy b-day, little guy!

*Awkward silence*
Pluto: "What? What is it?"
Eris: "Well, if no one else will tell him . . ."
Andromeda: "Eris, hush. Pluto, dear, why don't you pick out a new hairstyle and clothes. Y'know, just for fun."
Eris: "That forehead, though."

Here's our made-over Pluto. He adds geek to his active trait and picked up the soulmate aspiration. His looks fall pretty evenly between Eris and Ceres, with a fair mix of both parents. I said it before, but I'm really happy with all three of the kids.

As they share the cake at the table, my turn concludes and I worked on cleaning up and packing up the house and family for Kristina. They have been a blast to play and I'm really looking forward to seeing where Kristina takes them. As of right now, we have not made a final determination of heiress yet, so let's take one more look at the potential candidates.

So who will it be? Your guess is as good as mine right now! Both girls are so different, yet so wonderful and beautiful in their own rights. This is a crucial moment for the legacy: what direction will the heiress take the family in?

And with a final shot of the active parents "firing up" their daughters, I am ready to wrap this thing up. Thanks so much for reading and be sure to check back for Kristina's next chapter with either Eris or Ceres leading the family. Please come visit us at SiMania!