It's that time again! Welcome back to Part V of Chapter 6, where we get to see the Hart family grow, learn, and, as always, excel. I don't have any jokes to make in this section, so let's jump right in . . .
Last chapter, which actually wasn't that long ago for once, saw the addition of a third (!!!) girl, the final child for this generation. Hadley was an awesome vampire super mom and Jordon was a mostly absent aspiration-focused dad who was really slow at his aspiration. Grandma Io is still around, telling erratic stories all over the house, but we lost Louis, though he haunts frequently enough. Oldest Cassini is a child while Suisei and Kepler are still toddlers, so there's still quite a bit to get done before I can turn the family over to Kristina. Let's check in with the parents of this generation.
Jordon: "And I wrote another song! I'm getting so close to finishing."
Hadley: "That's great, dear."
Cassini: "Mom, that's the same voice you use to tell the toddlers they made good poopies on the potty."
Hadley: "Don't you have some homework to do, dear?"
Cassini: *grumbles and slinks away*
Jordon: "Anyway, I'm thinking the next one should start in A minor for a change. Wouldn't that be wicked?"
Hadley: "Don't you have some gardening to do, dear?"
Jordon: *grumbles and slinks away*
Hadley has the patience of a saint.
And here's our two gardeners using some questionable methods. It's winter anyway, so there's very little maintenance to do. Jordon works on befriending Patchy instead. And Io? Well, she does things Io-style. It's best to let her be.
FINALLY, Jordon is down to just needing to mentor someone for a while. The task falls to Io, who gets to learn guitar. Sorry, Io.
Laika: "Oh man, did he start her in A minor? Pfft, amateur. I mean, bark."
Cassini is working on Social Butterfly. She got really chummy with Suisei when they were both toddlers, so I was thinking I'd wait and have them be best friends for that step of the aspiration, but I didn't want to wait for Suisei to age up, so Cassini worked on befriending her cousin Gaia (Rook's daughter) instead. I said last chapter that they became best friends but I got ahead of myself: it actually happens this chapter. They just socialized last chapter.
While I'm micromanaging Cassini's social life, I check over on the toddlers and Hadley has them all sorted. Suisei is good with needs, and Kepler's getting a meal. Hadley is frighteningly competent for a sim.
Suisei's upstairs working on her communication skill and being cute as a button besides.
Hadley: "Sigh, it really will be nice when he finishes that aspiration. He's been so focused on it for so long, though. I wonder how he'll make the adjustment and what he'll focus on next. It would be nice to have a partner again with these girls."
There, see? Cassini achieves best friend status with Gaia! Next step is learning personal space boundaries with close relations. Seriously, every other angle of this shot looks like they're making out. :/
Aww, cuties! Gaia is a goof like Cassini, so they get along well. I'm planning on each of the girls befriending one of the cousins.
When Louis visits, Io drops whatever she's doing and tracks him down like a homing missile. True love can't be interrupted by death!
Cassini got the Happy Toddler trait from having level 3 in all her skills when she aged up, but I've learned some tricks from other simmers at
Boolprop, so I wanted to try to get Suisei and Kepler to be Top-Notch Toddlers (all max level skills), which I've never achieved before. This involved a lot of work, so it's a good thing no one in this house works and they just live off their magical money garden and paintings, haha. The hardest is thinking because there's some great interactions at the higher levels, but the kiddos don't really like the blocks for long and it's a lot of micromanaging to get them to those upper levels.
Aww, sibling interaction. Laika also always manages to be in the middle of a lot of shots. She's such a sweet puppy. I'm excited to see what she's going to look like as an adult, but it is taking forever for her to grow up!
*SPLASH*
Hadley: "Argh. You're lucky you're cute, Kepler."
Cassini messes around with the snow while waiting to socialize with more people. She had this whim for a while, so I finally indulged her. Her snowpal is cute.
Hadley has found a new favorite hobby. She rolls so many whims to cook pet food for Laika. Spoiled puppy! Considering her daughters exclusively eat leftovers and quick meals, this is some intense spoiling.
Jordon finally completed mentoring Io and completes his Musical Genius aspiration, so he participates in skilling the girls. Suisei is finally high enough in thinking to "Ask Why," driving Hadley to the brink. It's both hilarious and very effective, so I don't mind taking the time to spam it.
While spending time with his girls, Jordon is thinking hard about what he wants next from his life.
Jordon: "My love, I don't think I've been a very good dad or partner. I want to try to fix that. Will you give me a chance to be a better part of this family and treat my girls the way they deserve?"
Hadley: "What did you have in mind?"
Jordon: "I thought I'd start with Soulmate."
Hadley: "Well then, throw some flirts my way!"
One gold date later . . .
NO! Io, this is terrible timing. Your daughter is currently hitting it two floors away and I'm not sure she's going to make it to see you off. Couldn't you have waited til morning?
Io: "Do you mind? I am literally, and I cannot stress this enough, dying here."
As soon as Hadley could crawl out from under the sheets, she raced downstairs, too late to say goodbye properly but enough that her mother wasn't totally alone at the end. She arrived just in time for Grim to collect Io's soul. He didn't bother sticking around this time.
Without any prompting from me, Hadley again goes to mourn her parents, now reunited at last. This may put the kibosh on Jordon's romantic plans for a few days.
He can still help out his daughters in the mean time, though.
Suisei: "But, Daddy! WHY?"
Oh.
Well.
That's terrifying.
Looks like we finally appeased Patchy enough to release him, and . . . I'm ambivalent about it. He does help out quite a bit (when he's not playing blocks), but boy is he creepy!
Suisei did it! She got all her skills maxed, and just in time for her birthday, which she is dressed up for here.
Happy birthday, Suisei! It's just the immediate family minus Kepler, who is asleep in the toddler nursery.
Big breath to blow out those candles! Let's see our little future vampire.
Suisei is really cute! That's no surprise in this family, though. She's now an aspiring Whiz Kid and a Music Lover. She actually looks A LOT like Cassini, not just in the coloring, but face structure too.
However, one place she differs is she has the low nose bridge that Hadley, Io, and Mira all have/had, while Cassini got more of her dad's nose.
And then, BAM!, Hugh is up in your face. Why, you may ask? (A perfectly justified question.)
I felt bad for Hugh - he of the pink crop top, man bun, and perpetual pining for Hadley - and I was curious what would have happened if I had chosen him over Jordon, so I pulled him out of his household in Manage Households and grew him up in CAS. He was already a perfectionist and childish (childish we knew from the toddler play date) and apparently has the Nerd Brain aspiration, just like Hadley when she was younger. I randomized his third trait, and he got romantic, which just cracks me up to no end. Hugh, folks.
I gave him a nice house in Willow Creek and two children. This one, a girl named Lilliana, looks pretty much just like Hugh.
But this one, a boy named Malakai, is suspiciously Hart-ish. Okay, you got me. I pulled a bootleg Hadley clone out of my library, used her for the play with genetics option, and these are the two children produced in CAS. I then deleted Clone!Hadley, so the official story is that Hugh grew up and adopted some children that reminded him of Hadley and is raising them as a single father as a way to move on from his long obsession with the married heiress.
Suisei: "Uh, thanks for that weird birthday present?"
Hey, you're welcome. What little girl doesn't want pseudo-half-siblings for her birthday?
Just taking a peek at our photo wall. Hadley is improving her skill in preparation for taking pics of her daughters one day, and she was particularly proud of the series of 40 or so pictures she took of the toilet (because she happened to be standing in the bathroom when that command queued up), so she immortalized one here until the inevitable day when Kristina removes it to the storage basement, shaking her head at my ridiculousness. :P
But then Hadley, to celebrate patching up her strained relationship with her husband, also took this selfie with Jordon and it was too cute not to put up on the wall.
Of course, it's of lower quality than the toilet picture, but it's the thought that counts. I think.
Louis is haunting again and Hadley is able to catch up with her dad.
This, of course, involves a dramatic story with all the associated facial expressions.
And then a good old-fashioned ghost scare. Ah, so normal. Love it.
Then Hadley was just trying to bathe our perpetually-dirty puppy, but Louis had to go and make it weird.
Finally, Winterfest comes around and the sad moodlets from Io's death have passed. The older girls get to decorate the tree, and Hadley supervises.
Hadley: "Are you sure you don't want any other colors?"
Cassini: "No! Just blue!"
Suisei: "Yeah, it's more s'phisticut."
Cassini: "Ooh, fifty cent word, Suisei!"
Hadley: "Uh . . ."
Kepler: "I wanna decorate!"
Sorry, Kepler. You have to sit that one out, but presents soon!
Hadley: "Ack! Jordon! No red and yellow ornaments! The girls will have a fit!"
Jordon: "Huh?"
Hadley: "Don't ask. It's a whole thing."
Finally the whole tree gets decorated and the family gathers around to open their presents. Kepler got to go first.
(Sorry, I left a wall down and didn't notice until much later.)
And she's delighted by her present! I had funny comments about their presents but I didn't write them down OF COURSE, and I've forgotten who got what. They all actually got good presents, though, which is usually not my experience in families, so that was nice.
The older girls are also happy with their gifts.
Even the parents are pleased, and they have matching gift boxes. I like to think they did that couple thing where, like, they both got each other the same personalized mug or something without realizing it.
Then Jordon spends a little time with Kepler working on her movement skill. He's almost done with Soulmate, and he's already thinking he'd like to do something for his daughters with his next aspiration.
Found a good use for Patchy! I'm kind of surprised he has plasma, but Hadley will take what she can get. She has the Guilty Drinker weakness, so she has to ask for permission always, and a lot of friends and family turn her down, so it's nice to have another person to ask.
Jordon: "Time for the grand meal!"
For some reason this also invited a lady named Angel off the street, and Hadley can't eat food either due to her weaknesses, so it was an interesting meal, but everyone had a great holiday.
Cassini and Suisei
were going to build a snowpal together, but Clement swooped in and took Suisei's place, so she was stuck standing around in a blizzard. Not cool, Mr. Frost. Not cool at all.
Io! Good to see you already!
With a long string of flirts and compliments, Jordon finishes his Soulmate aspiration and proves his devotion to Hadley after the tense early years of their marriage.
Meanwhile, Io is playfully playing with our puppy. Neato.
Jordon's next aspiration is Super Parent, so he spends even more time with the kids. This one will require a child to be a young adult for him to finish, so I won't see him complete it on my turn, but I think this was a good turn for him to rededicate himself to the family. Hadley, of course, is just waiting out those 20 days as a Master Vampire. She's pretty far. It takes forever to complete that one, though.
Look, don't judge our parenting style, Patchy.
Finally! Laika is growing up!
Oh my goodness, she's a floofy monster. I love her. That tail!!!
Who's a good girl? Yes, it's you! As a reminder, she is loyal, adventurous, and a sleuth.
Cassini needs a few more friends for her aspiration, so she and her little sister head off to the Christensen household to meet their newest neighbors. They both know Hugh already, of course, but they enjoy meeting new kids. These kids look a little familiar, though . . .
Cassini works on befriending Lilliana.
Meanwhile, Suisei is working on Whiz Kid within the safety of the house. It is freezing outside!
And sure enough, laying on the snowy ground in a sundress is a one-way ticket to freezing. Cassini figures she'll finish befriending Lilliana and Malakai inside.
Hugh, who is of course outside my control, is also freezing, but that's his own fault because he decided to grill fruit in the backyard in his crop top.
However, when I noticed Malakai was also freezing indoors, I figured there was a bug keeping the NPCs from appropriately responding to the weather, and I didn't want to be responsible for any of their deaths, so we headed home.
There, Hadley is working on her brand new freelance artist career. This is something she can balance on her own schedule with her parenting, her vampire lifestyle, and the general upkeep of the house. She's so good at painting that she brings in decent money.
The other members of the household are likewise being very productive. Mmhmm.
Ugh, Laika needs some training. She likes waking the girls up with howling.
Finally it is Kepler's birthday. It came down to the wire, but she also earned Top-Notch Toddler.
And to show for that, she has a nice ruby plumbob. Ha, happy birthday, Kepler!
Here's our girl in purple. She's a loner and she wants to be an Artistic Prodigy. She also looks a lot like her sisters. I knew they'd all have the same eye and hair colors since both parents have them, but I was hoping for a bit more variety in facial features. They all are very cute, though, so I guess I can't complain too much.
To celebrate having three children, the family goes out to a fancy dinner together.
Once seated, the girls immediately start on their placemats, and a friendly conversation strikes up around the table.
While a paparazzo gawks at Hadley (who is not famous, so I'm not sure why she's so interesting to this woman), the members of the family that consume food enjoy nice dinners. I always like picking out food for my sims at restaurants and making up little stories in my head for why that sim would order that meal. Everyone but Jordon had water to drink, though, because apparently this establishment only serves cocktails and wine for refreshments.
Suisei got up to annoy this couple from the Strangerville pack.
By the time Kepler pulled out the paint and Suisei had driven off the weird rich western couple, I decided it was time to go home.
Jordon: "My love, I'm so proud of our girls, even if they did destroy that restaurant."
Hadley: "That's parenting for you."
Jordon: "Thank you for giving me the time to get over myself and focus on you and the girls. I don't deserve you."
Hadley: "Damn right, Jordon, but I'm glad you worked it out too. We need you. I love you."
Jordon spends a lot of time teaching please and thank you and helping the girls with needs to bring up his parenting skill.
He maybe needs to talk a bit more with Kepler, though. Isn't that cold?
Cassini gets a chance to finish befriending a defrosted Lilliana, while Suisei just looks suspicious.
Suisei: "They're not our real half-siblings, and you're weird."
No arguments here.
Cassini still has a soft spot in her heart for Laika, even though they're both a lot bigger than the last time we saw them cuddling.
Cassini's final friend that she needed to make for Social Butterfly is uncle Rook, which is really quite fitting. How sweet. She'll want to be a bodybuilder as a teen and up, so her next aspiration is Rambunctious Scamp. Since there's three candidates for heir, I'm not going to kill myself perfectly preparing them all. My goal is two aspirations apiece: the one they rolled plus whichever other one will most help their future goals/personality.
I do still want to give them a leg up in life, though, so I enrolled all the girls in scouting. I've heard you can get really good skilling benefits from the trait.
After their meeting on this snowy Saturday, Jordon plays with Cassini for a while and Laika snoozes peacefully in the snow.
Then it's inside for New Year's Eve. Io is even there to celebrate with the family in front of the countdown. Too bad there isn't enough seating for everyone. This room needs a makeover badly. It's from my first build of the house and it's pretty stale. Kristina made over a few rooms and they look a lot better, but I resolve (ha!) to update a few of the other rooms.
Happy New Year, Harts!
This is the face of a woman who just realized her "days lived as a Master Vampire" counter is getting reset every time I leave the lot or manage households. Facepalm. Now I have to keep count manually. Ugh.
While I get to moan about it here, Hadley works out her frustration in Eris's neglected hideout. An amusing anecdote about that lemon on the floor there: I believe it was stolen from school or something by Rook when he was a teenager (he's a kleptomaniac) and it's just been sitting around. At present, in my play, Hadley keeps getting accused by people of stealing things from their houses. I researched this and apparently it's a bug that happens when you have some celebrity level and have a stolen item on the lot, even if you didn't steal it. Oh well. I'm keeping it, because if Rook wanted us to have a lemon, we're damn well going to have a lemon.
Laika keeps a close eye on Cassini. Just kidding, she's sleeping.
These girls are freakishly excited about doing laundry. At first it was cute, but now it's weird. It's laundry. No one enjoys laundry.
I love this picture because, while the erratic trait will only pop up in Kepler out of this whole generation, and not until she's an adult, it looks like Suisei is joining her mother in shouting in the focus room. Really she's just mad at her typing game, which is equally funny.
Scout meeting! I don't know why, but Cassini grew up very thin, while Suisei and Kepler are both on the heavy side. I guess that's Jordon's genetics?
Hey now. They told us you were fixed when we adopted you. Apparently this is also a bug and neutered/spayed puppies grow up to be natural dogs. We don't want puppies even though we have space, so I may need to do something about this.
Jordon's adult birthday. Happy birthday, Jordon!
And for his birthday, he gets simultaneous serenades from his wife and his dog. Lol.
Suisei has mastered motor and finished Rambunctious Scamp. Her next aspiration was Social Butterfly, I think. I can't fully remember, but that seems right.
Meanwhile, Kepler is sawing away and Jordon has joined the Freelance writer career. He has absolutely no writing skill, though, so he writes some terrible books so he can complete jobs with at least some skill. This room is also dying for a makeover.
Speaking of Jordon, he needs a child to age into a young adult with three character values in the range for positive traits. That's going to be our girl Cassini, so she works on her empathy.
Hadley has been working on training Laika and actually maxed the skill. Even more excitingly, we finally found the elusive dirty plate that has been causing dish-cleaning-route-failing (it's on the bottom shelf). I put some decorative thing there instead to prevent a repeat of the situation.
Oh boy. Apparently you can be a little too enthusiastic to fulfill the "What's that?" command, Laika. This is funny because one of her obsessions is the main floor toilet, so on the other hand I'm not surprised she's found a way to become one with the plumbing.
Although Kristina had created a wonderfully cool room for the previous generation, I didn't feel like it fit the sillier and less polished girls this gen, so I redid the room in greens. I think it turned out pretty cute.
I meant to keep this painting because it kinda looks like Hadley is painting using Laika as a reference (plus those are Sims 2 pets in the painting!) but I accidentally sold it later.
Hadley: "Are you sure you guys don't need help? I'm basically good at everything I do, you know."
Suisei: "I think we'll be okay, Mom."
Jordon: "So if there's no Roman numerals on the measuring tape, that means it's not metric, right?"
Suisei: "Hmm, on second thought . . ."
Laika: *napping forever - it's a dog's life even in the sims*
Hadley: "Wow! You managed an excellent project, Jordon. Well done. Especially considering I have rocket science skill and you don't."
Jordon: "You're not the only prodigy around these parts, my love."
Hadley: "Oh yeah? We'll see about that."
Hadley: "Okay, Kepler. You know the next ingredient for the rocket fuel, right?"
Kepler: "I'm in second grade."
Hadley: "Do the calculations again! We have to show up your father!"
Rivalries aside, all the girls are doing great in school.
They get rewarded with a new combo living/rec room! I think it looks so much better and it helped that I branched out from the blue theme of the early decorations in the house. The girls are especially pleased with the new foosball table. There's an aquarium but currently it only has a wolf eel in it. I'm hoping when Suisei is a teen Angling Ace, she can add some more.
The foosball table will see A LOT of use and whims rolled over the rest of my turn. I think it's the favorite thing in the room - even over the globe bar and the giant television!
Freelancers gotta freelance.
Jordon is registered but he hasn't taken any jobs yet because he's still improving his skill.
Kepler finished Artistic Prodigy. I think I might have given her Whiz Kid next.
Two night owls enjoying a quiet moment on the patio. Now that spring has sprung, it's worth being outside again, though it's still been a very chilly spring. Luckily, Hadley has a reward trait and is not affected by the cold.
Hadley: "Jordon, my love, we have rekindled our romance and you've proven your worth to the family. Now that you're an adult and I'm still forever a young adult, I can see your youth slipping away and that scares me."
Jordon: "Gee, thanks, nothing gets a guy in the mood like hearing how old he's getting."
Hadley: "I just meant I don't want to ever lose you. Will you allow me to give you a gift to keep you with me always?"
Jordon: "I thought you'd never ask!"
(Jordon has been rolling the whim for Hadley to turn him frequently, but she never wanted to until after he patched things up and rejoined the family. Now that she has a whim for it, I thought it was a sign.)
They perform the ceremony.
And the transformation begins!
Hadley: "That was hot."
Jordon: "My tummy hurts."
Hadley: "I know how to make you feel better . . ."
Oh dear. I think we better leave our vamp and vamp-to-be alone for now!
What kind of vampire will Jordon be? Where will their freelancer careers take them? What will the girls look like as teens and what's in store for them as we count down the days that I have this family? Check back soon for another update on the Harts! Thanks for reading!
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