When we last left off, things were going pretty well for our current heiress Io. She successfully finished the Freelance Botanist aspiration and began working on her second aspiration, The Curator. Her "loves the outdoors" trait makes working on this one a breeze. Her "insane" trait, less so.
Io's parents, Mira and Brandy, had been working steadily on their aspirations. Brandy, having already completed the Renaissance Sim and Musical Genius aspirations, is trying to finish Painter Extraordinaire next. Mira, who became a Renaissance Sim during Roxy's turn, is working on the Bestselling Author Aspiration.
Also, Io's fiance, Louis, had just moved in. He's taken over the cooking duties for the household since Sao moved out in the last chapter. He's pretty terrible at it right now. His unique blend of "genius," "loner," and "kleptomaniac" traits make him a great source of entertainment.
Much like Io, Louis is currently unemployed so that he can focus more closely on his aspiration. I have him painting to earn some simoleons on the side, but he is anxious to become Leader of the Pack, which essentially means that he wants to lead the most successful club in town.
So, on his second day with the family, he gets started by creating what is soon to be the hottest, new group in Willow Creek: Sims That Enjoy Affluent Life or STEAL.
STEAL has everything to do with partying and having a good time. It has nothing to do with liquoring up the richest sims in the neighborhood in order to more easily gain access to their homes and belongings. Who told you that???
The only requirement for becoming a member of STEAL is to be incredibly wealthy. This requirement ensures that all members can afford to party in style! Approved STEAL activities include being friendly, drinking, dancing and
The first meeting of this wholesome and completely innocent club went off without a hitch. Louis is able to get to the next level of his aspiration after this gathering, which requires him to complete 10 club activities and be in an active club gathering for 12 hours.
In fact, he's so pleased with himself that he steals the toilet paper holder from the club in celebration.
Meanwhile, Io has been frolicking around town in a completely appropriate outfit for digging up fossils and frogs. She's close to completing the next level of her aspiration, she just needs two more crystals (which are stubbornly refusing to show up).
Back at the homestead, Brandy is having a nice night. She snags a promotion to professional pianist and engages in what must be an extremely painful celebratory kiss with Mira.
But while things are starting to wind down for the rest of the family, things are just getting started for Louis as he throws another club gathering. He is able to earn enough club points after this one to buy an upgrade, allowing him to expand his club to 7 sims. He adds the wealthy Hugo Villareal to the mix before heading home and calling it a night.
Over the next few days, aspirations continue to be the name of the game for the Hart family. Everyone in the house falls into a good routine of working on their goals. Louis throws club outings, Mira writes and Brandy paints.
As for Io, she heads out first thing each morning to work on her collections, then comes back home to work on her handiness skill (which takes FOREVER to build, if you were curious). If she manages to max it out before my turn with this family is over, I'd like her to get to the hidden lot in Oasis Springs.
Mixed in with all that, Io also continues to take care of the garden. We hired another gardener after Louis married into our family, but she's hopelessly bugged. You can just see her heading into the back door of the Hart house in this picture. She walks all day from the front of the property to the back. She doesn't garden and never leaves. She doesn't get hungry or use the bathroom. There is no option to ask her to leave. Resetting her using testing cheats does nothing. Leaving the lot and coming back does nothing. She's basically one of the family now.
This gardener's name is Madeline, and she freaks Io out. Well, to be fair, everything freaks Io out, but it is rather unnerving watching her walk back and forth all day.
Eventually, I gave up trying to get rid of her and embraced her presence here. She's useful for building charisma skill.
It was around this time of aspiration-building that I realized that the club system in the sims is essentially broken. It makes the game way too easy. To conquer that "12 hours in a club gathering" aspiration step, I had Louis found a second club for the house named "Artists in Residence." I made everyone in the household a member and set their preferred activities to be painting, writing, listening to music and sleeping. I bought perks to make creativity, writing, handiness and social skills build faster. Then I let a gathering run continuously every time I was playing on the home lot. I was constantly earning club points and Brandy, Mira and Louis were cranking out paintings and novels at an astonishing pace.
Eventually, I had enough club points to buy a perk called "Rally the Troops." This perk refills almost all of your club sims needs, and you can spam it as many times as you want. It got to the point where the household didn't need to sleep or eat. While this was awesome for a while, it eventually got boring. Plus, I discovered that sims act weird when they've been rallied a lot. They still want to sleep even when their energy bars are completely green. They keep breaking away from their tasks to sneak off to bed.
Brandy's life bar was starting to look very full, so I decided to exploit the clubs system just long enough to let her finish her painting aspiration. She started by making it to level 9 in the painting skill and moved up to the next level of her aspiration, which required her to sell 3 paintings and create 3 emotional paintings. Mira also benefited from this system and made it to the next level of her writing aspiration. To complete that one, she needs to write three best sellers and earn $25,000 in writing royalties.
With all the club shenanigans going on, Louis, of course, made it to the next level of his aspiration. His next steps were to build charisma skill and talk about clubs with 5 club members. He gets started on the charisma skill right away with the mirror.
When that got boring, he continued building the skill by befriending Madeline, because, of course. It's not like she has gardening to do or anything.
Once Madeline's friendship was secured, he moved onto befriending Callisto and Sao, who he didn't get a chance to bond with before they moved out of the legacy house. I wanted the whole family to be friendly with each other, so I figured this was a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone - build charisma and family relationships at the same time.
The trio hung out in the basement party room for a few games of cards, during which Louis acquitted himself quite well. He became friends with both girls in short order, thanks to his growing charisma skill and his gregarious trait.
Callisto obviously approved of him, and confirmed that she still has the best facial expressions of the generation. I miss this girl!
She must have attended the Colin Hart School of Don't Wake the Llama.
So, while all of this skill building and merriment was going on throughout the house, Io was left to fend for herself to get a bite to eat. This brings us to a special interlude in our story: Cooking with Io!
Scrambled Eggs:
Step 1: Crack three eggs into a bowl, stir well, and abandon the bowl completely.
Step 2: Take a nap on the couch.
Step 3: Return casually to the bowl once your controller realizes you are no longer in the kitchen. Pour eggs into a pan and place on the stove, then go outside to listen to music.
Step 4: Return to the stove as if you'd been there the whole time and continue cooking over medium heat until eggs are firm and fluffy.
This is the mother of our next generation, people.
Eventually, Louis completes his charisma requirements and throws another STEAL gathering to finish up the last bit of his aspiration. We've already earned 1000 club points through Artists in Residence gatherings. The only thing left to do now is have a club with 8 members. Louis heads down to Club Slate to earn the requisite club points to purchase a slot for an 8th member. He kicks off the night by dancing unnaturally close to Eric Lewis.
You know, if Louis and Eric got married, Louis' new name would be Louis Lewis. I think I missed an opportunity here.
...or maybe not. I don't think Eric enjoyed the dancing.
Ultimately, the gathering was a success. Our rich and snooty members earned Louis enough club points through drinking and dancing to add an 8th member to the group. Aspiration completed!
Honestly, this aspiration is too easy. I'm not really complaining, but compared to some of the others that take a million years to finish, this one is a walk in the park.
To celebrate his achievement, Louis tried to steal a sculpture from the club, but this sim saw him and was thoroughly scandalized, so he couldn't do it. Bummer.
Eventually, I felt like taking a break from all the skilling and aspiration building that was going on in the house. Plus, Brandy's life bar was very close to going sparkly, so I decided that it was time to finally have our legacy wedding. Mira, the only sim left in the house who can be trusted to make food, does the honors of baking us a wedding cake.
We went with a night wedding, so the family and our guests starting arriving at our venue in the late afternoon. I thoughtfully planned out Io's wedding outfit in CAS, and she looked beautiful.
It didn't take me long to realize that I probably should have taken a peek at the rest of the family's formal outfits before throwing the wedding. Mira's rocking quite a daring mother of the bride look.
As the guests, which mainly consist of our small little family, Madeline, and STEAL members, start arriving, Louis and Io fawn all over each other outside and start racking up those wedding points.
Then, as if on cue, everyone rushed for the bar. If you look closely, you'll notice that Madeline was deeply annoyed by the crowd. I'm so glad she could be here with us on such an important day.
Of course, since this lot was classified as a lounge, some crashers showed up too. However, I was more than happy to welcome our old friend with the exquisite style to the party.
After everyone had their drinks, Io and Louis exchanged vows just as the sun was setting.
The wedding went off without a hitch, although I still do wish that sims would sit down to watch the ceremony. The only sim who managed to sit here was Madeline, and we all know her actions aren't controllable by the overlords at EA (or anyone else). Good for you Madeline. Buck the system.
And with that, Louis is officially married into the Hart family as our generation 5 legacy spouse!
After the ceremony the guests enjoyed cake, dancing and, of course, more drinking.
And I'm happy to report that almost everyone left happy. Eric, who tried his hardest to bait Louis into a fight before the wedding (presumably for the prior invasion of personal space at Club Slate), stayed long enough to angrily eat a piece of cake and then left.
It was a gold medal affair which left Mira smiling...or maybe it was all the drinks. Either way, we got to go home and delete a whole bunch of unnecessary "gifts" from our family inventory.
And hey, look! Madeline managed to beat us home!
Later that night, I got another message that it was almost Brandy's time to go. In a desperate attempt to finish her art aspiration, I called an Artist in Residence club gathering, had Louis rally the troops a few times, and got down to painting. Brandy finished her 10 excellent paintings, and headed to the art museum to admire three pieces of art. That unlocked the next level of her aspiration, for which she had to paint 5 masterpieces.
Despite painting several masterpieces in a row the day before, Brandy stubbornly refused to produce any more, despite painting through the night and having all the aspiration rewards to encourage them. She managed to paint one as morning dawned. Four more to go now.
Meanwhile, on Io's first morning as a newlywed, she FINALLY managed to unearth the last crystal she needed to get to the next level of her aspiration. She had been stalled on this step for days, so I was pretty happy with this. Next, she needed to send 5 items to the geological council, breed 5 frogs and collect 5 elements. Now, sending items to the geological council is how you get elements, so those two steps go hand in hand. All of her days of fruitless digging prior to this meant she had way more than 5 items in her inventory to send to the council. She sent them off immediately, clearing that step. Now we just have to wait and see how many elements come back.
Louis, who had been painting through the night alongside Brandy managed to get to the next level of the painter aspiration as well, so I sent him down to the museum to view his three pieces of art. Now he has to finish his 10 excellent paintings.
Racing against time, Brandy gets masterpieces 2 and 3 done. Just two more.
So...have you ever bred frogs in the Sims 4 before? I hadn't before this. It's a process completed entirely through your sim's inventory screen. Every four hours, you can select two frogs from your inventory to breed. The sim doesn't have to do anything. Here's a great picture of Io breeding her first frog, a Dirtwhirl, as it turned out.
And finally, after painting for nearly 24 hours straight, Brandy finishes masterpieces 4 and 5 and completes her third aspiration!
And it was literally not a moment too soon. Sadly, soon after finishing that last masterpiece, her time was up.
Mira, who had just arrived home from work, was with her as she passed. And Madeline too. Thank goodness Madeline was there to support our family through this difficult time.
I placed her urn out back in a little outdoor seating area. Eventually she'll be joined by Mira, but she still has a little bit of time left to go.
Brandy was one of the most accomplished sims in our whole legacy. She was a Renaissance Sim, a Musical Genius and a Painter Extraordinaire. You have to admit, completing three aspirations as a legacy spouse isn't too shabby! She was a great mom, a friend to everyone, and will most definitely be missed.
Never one to miss out on an opportunity to make a connection, Louis sticks around after Brandy's death to befriend the grim reaper. Due to his charisma and gregarious trait, he actually manages to make friends with him before he disappears. This unlocked the game achievement "Hello Darkness, My Old Chum."
Naturally, Mira takes this loss the hardest. Her gloomy trait makes her sadness even more intense and she spent the next few days drifting around the house a bit aimlessly.
But despite the Family's somber mood, life does go on. I continue to breed frogs out of Io's inventory, and she continues to go out collecting them. I bred the requisite five for her aspiration in short order.
Her samples also come back in from the council and she discovers more than 5 elements, meaning that we get to move onto the last level of her aspiration. To finish it up, she has to collect 25 collectibles and complete a collection. With all the scouting around we've done, she's only three frogs short of the whole collection, so that's the one I aim to complete.
Fishing in the creek behind the house is an easy way to chip away at the 25 collectibles, so Io starts building up that skill. We will start in on making the next generation of little Harts after both Louis and Io finish the aspirations they're currently working on.
Speaking of Louis, both he and Mira are continuing to work hard. Mira has been writing book after book and raking in the royalties, but she hasn't produced a bestseller yet. With how long books take to write, this is not a good thing. Louis, on the other hand, is moving through the painting aspiration quickly. He has reached level 10 in painting and finished his 10 excellent paintings. He's now just looking for those 5 masterpieces to finish up.
In between all this working, Mira is still in mourning. Louis does what he can to cheer her up. However, what really seems to do the trick is a pretty weird phone call she received a few days after Brandy's death...
It was Brandy's ghost, inviting her on a date! I definitely wasn't going to say no to that! Even death can't keep these two separated.
Things even got a little frisky in the cafe bushes.
The date definitely improved Mira's mood, thank goodness. Her happy moodlets from the woohoo balanced out her sad ones. If only things worked like this in real life.
Meanwhile, Io has fished up 25 collectibles bred a few more frogs. This is a picture of her breeding the last one to complete both her frog collection AND her aspiration. Doesn't she just look like the very picture of a skilled frog geneticist? She has now officially become "The Curator." Since she's already gotten a bit of a head start on fishing, I choose Angling Ace to be her next aspiration.
It was around this time that I decided to spruce up a few of the rooms in the Hart household. A lot of expansions and stuff packs have come out since this legacy started, so we were overdue for some new furnishings. First, I made some changes to our focus room. The elements Io discovered during her collecting are focusing decor, so I made a wall display for them.
I also changed up some of the furniture and decorations.
Next, I set my sights on the kitchen and decided to try a different color scheme.
I replaced the table as well with a new wooden one that I think came with the Dine Out pack. We take so many pictures in the kitchen throughout this legacy that I thought it might be nice to change up the background a little.
The inspiration room, however, I left alone. It would have been too annoying to kick everyone out of it anyway! This is a high traffic area this generation. Mira, fresh off of her ghost date, continues to write. She gets one best seller, meaning that she needs two more to complete her aspiration. With her luck, however, I'm not holding out much hope of her doing that before it's her time to go.
Louis, meanwhile, has just completed masterpiece three of his required five.
Io continues fishing while she waits for Louis to become a painter extraordinaire. She's up to level seven now and has what must be an extremely disgusting inventory full of spoiled fish. She catches enough to make it to the next level of her aspiration, for which she needs to catch five fish using bait and make six "great catches."
Part of Io's aspiration required her to either mount ten different fish or have ten different fish in bowls. As you can see, I opted for the bowls. They are lined up neatly in our inaccessible (to sims) basement storage area. What else is down here, you ask?
Oh, a little bit of everything.
During a break from the never ending aspiration-building we do here, Mira takes Louis' picture for our family photo wall of madness. I spared you the million and a half pictures she took of the floor first to build up her photography skill.
I sure do love this wall. We've come a long way in this legacy.
This is the face of a sim that just finished his second aspiration. That's right, Louis just got his fifth masterpiece and has become Painter Extraordinaire! For his next aspiration, I chose Fabulously Wealthy, which he is actually fairly close to finishing already due to the Hart family's wealth. He just needs to earn a bit more money to complete it.
Io also continues to make progress with her fishing. After catching fish with bait and making the required number of great catches, she makes it to the final level of the aspiration, which involves her maxing the fishing skill and catching 20 different types of fish. Right now she only has ten types, so this is going to take a while.
After several days off in a row, Mira finally headed back into work. The perpetually present Madeline waves her off. She's still not gardening, so the family has to. Speaking of that, our garden is fairly large and our stock of produce and flowers was getting super-huge. I finally sat and sold off all of it.
Or, more correctly, Louis sold it from his inventory. This brought our household funds to over $1,000,000 and completed Louis' fabulously wealthy aspiration. He looks awfully proud of himself for a sim that really hasn't done anything to earn his achievement, doesn't he? He's now completed three aspirations. For his next challenge, I chose the Soul Mate aspiration.
This aspiration requires him to go on a lot of dates and perform romantic interactions with his spouse. He starts the process by asking Io to join him in the hot tub for a romantic evening.
With Mira out of the house at work, it's the perfect time for a little bit of love. Everyone in the house has been so busy completing aspirations that they haven't had much time for each other.
After two gold medal dates in a row, Louis completes the next two levels of his aspiration.
And all that canoodling led to something else pretty good. Io is pregnant! The next generation of Harts is officially on the way!
Later on, Mira returns home from work with a promotion to space ranger. She also gets the message about how it's almost her time to pass on. Immediately, I have her retire, since she wasn't going to have the time to earn any more promotions and I wanted her to enjoy her last couple of days at home.
Besides, she has a lot of super important stuff to do around the house.
In other news, Io received an award in the mail for breeding all of the frogs. It makes no mention of the rather more impressive fact that she accomplished this while mostly napping.
Io, excited about her pregnancy, tells Louis the big news. He, like all sim partners, does not react appropriately.
But he gets over it pretty fast and asks her out on another date. The next part of his aspiration requires him to get a couple of silver medal dates, so we knock them out quickly over dinner.
They are so absorbed with each other that they don't even mind when Brandy randomly floats through the kitchen. Louis is stunned, however, to learn that Io is insane during one of these dates. Shocking, I know.
As the night winds down, Io starts feeling the pangs of morning sickness. She's been pregnant for like, five minutes, so this is not a good sign.
This continues into breakfast the next morning. While Io suffers, Louis remains cheerfully oblivious. Besides, he's got other things on his mind.
You see, since Louis has been so busy working on his aspirations lately, he hasn't stolen anything in a while. As a kleptomaniac, this makes him very tense. There's nothing to do for it but head out and make some trouble. Accordingly, he pays a visit to the Spencer-Kim-Lewis family.
He's in luck, because only Alice is home when he arrives and she's playing on the computer way up on the third floor. No, there didn't used to be a lamp on that table there. What are you talking about?
And there was never a birdbath in this garden either.
As a side note, look at how high the Spencer-Kim-Lewis family hangs their toilet paper! These people are obviously monsters.
When Louis returns home, he decides to do a bit of completely-unrelated-to-his-outing remodeling in Eris' old secret lair on the back corner of the Hart property.
Because this corner was badly in need of a lamp.
And Eris' grave looks so nice with a birdbath nearby.
While Louis has been out on his completely innocent visit, Mira spends her remaining time helping out around the house. She begins by weeding the garden.
Because Madeline is obviously way too busy to help. Having graduated from walking from the front of the house to the back, she's now taken to checking Facebook too.
With Io sick, I have her take a break from fishing to relax. However, there is always time for love. Louis uses this down time wisely, takes her on a couple of dates around the house, and completes enough romantic interactions to finish yet another aspiration. He completes Soul Mate and is now working on Nerd Brain, which should take longer than his others. He has now completed four aspirations, which is ridiculous.
You know, it's hard to understand how Louis didn't know that she was crazy before yesterday.
Because she hasn't exactly been hiding it.
Like, at all.
Anyway, the next morning brings with it a baby bump and what should be a heaping helping of shame for Madeline, who continues her endless march around the house while her heavily pregnant client gardens.
Louis starts off the day working on his new aspiration, which requires logic skill and woodworking projects at this point.
It also involved repairing things, which is awfully handy because Madeline breaks the computer that very morning.
I don't know that I'd necessarily trust him to do this, but the repairs seem to go well. He completes the first step of his aspiration and starts in on the second, which requires more logic skill building.
Later on Io seems to have recovered from her bout of morning sickness, so I sent her off to the mysterious Sylvan Glade to hopefully find some new and interesting fish. It was my first time ever coming here, and I somehow miraculously answered all the questions right to unlock this location on the first try.
This place really is quite beautiful.
And packed full of interesting fish too. Io caught a few things that she hadn't gotten yet, including this salmon and the rare treefish. This quasi-magical location inside a tree might not have been the safest option for a place to hang out while pregnant, but as we all know, Hart women will go anywhere and do anything when they're expecting.
After a short time fishing, we headed home so Io could grab a bite to eat and arrived just in time for the saddest thing ever. Mira's time had finally come.
Her urn joins Brandy's outside, so they are united again.
Mira was our generation four heiress and was basically a perfect sim. Quick to skill, friendly, and helpful, she did a great job moving this legacy forward. She was a Renaissance sim, an astronaut and was only two bestsellers away from finishing the writing aspiration. We're all going to miss her.
Io was, understandably, miserable after this. She had the powerful sad moodlet from witnessing the death of a loved one, and her insanity trait decided to match up with her real mood for once and give her an additional "just because you're nuts" gloomy moodlet.
To take my mind off of the gloomy tone of the house, I got us another fish. Meet Scout, Io's treefish.
The rest of the night didn't go well. Louis, Io, and Madeline are now the only sims left in the house and it felt very empty. After eating the world's saddest dinner, they called it a night.
Luckily, we had the impending birth of our next generation to take our minds off of Mira's death. Madeline even got into the spirit of things and felt the baby.
Thinking that I'd take advantage of the calm before the storm, I sent Io back to Sylvan Glade to fish a bit more. She caught a rainbow fish, then peed herself. I brought a moodlet solver with me, so I'm going to assume that the peeing was in relation to those scary eyes glaring at us from the tree there.
After cleaning up at home, the big moment finally arrives! Io goes into labor and Louis enters panic mode.
As Io heads to the nursery to welcome the next generation of Harts, I'm going to be evil and bring this chapter to a close. Check back soon for our next update, in which you'll meet all of the new Hart kids and see Io and Louis continue to crush their aspirations.
In the meantime, come visit us at SiMania to check out more legacy stories and meet some pretty cool people! Until next time, happy simming!
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