Medley Dynasty, the Third (Week Twenty-Nine)

[Lasnien]

Thanks, Trip and Rhoxi, for your endless support on this story. It's always good to hear from the people that read. And thanks for the congrats on the real-life nooboo. He's absolutely adorable, and I'm in no way biased about that. Nope. Nuh-uh.

Well, it's been a rather uneventful week here. Finn finished two more of his challenges in nectar-making, leaving only the one cryptically referred to as “Vizard of Vine” to be completed. No pictures of his work, though, since grape-stomping does tend to get repetitive after a while.

As for the rest of the household... there are toddlers around, so you know what that must mean...

Talking...



walking...



and potty.



Once the children had learned all they must, they were pretty much left to their own devices. They tended to gravitate toward the block table, where they'd chatter on about anything that caught their imaginations.


The week capped off with their birthdays: first Darius, whose birthday somehow managed to catch us unaware.


He's gravitating ever closer to the man he was cloned from, with an artistic streak beginning to show itself.


And then it was Emily's turn.


Quite the imagination on this one. Already announcing her aspiration to become an astronaut, perhaps.


At her (extremely persistent) insistence, Finn agreed to install an inventing table in the empty room next to his nectary equipment. I don't know what she's making in there – besides a racket!

[Rhoxi]

Aw, what cute kids! Although, I'm starting to lose track; is this gen 4?

[Trip]

I'm pretty sure that Emily is generation five.

Cute kids! Usually sims look cuter as toddlers than children, but Darrius and Emily seemed to grow into their looks even better as children. Good luck to Finn with Vizard of Vine.

[Lasnien]

Yep, Emily's generation 5. And I'm pretty sure that Finn's completed Vizard of Vine at this point, judging from the number of grapes that Isabella handed him and the fact that those are all gone, but I just really want to see it done in his journal. So, I'm being the evil watcher and making him harvest his own grapes all over again, just so he can squash them himself. What made me think that nectar-making was a good idea, again?

[Lasnien]

So, birthdays. Not much else of note happening in the Medley household these days. Finn keeps himself locked up in the basement with his nectar makers or schmoozes with the high-rollers in town for campaign donations. He's a full adult now, and of course he's in the midst of a mid-life crisis.


Darius and Emily are inseparable, as I'd hoped. We all take care not to treat them like siblings, though I still worry they may think it too odd to date when they're older. Time will tell.


Yuna passed away on Darius's birthday, at the age of 93. Despite her late addition to the household, she had several friends here who will miss her dearly.


She begged the grim one for just one more day – hours even – so she could see her step-daughter's birthday. As always, he refused.


While the rest of the family scattered to the far ends of the household to mourn in private (or perhaps just find their moodlet managers), Garret chose to hang back and ask the reaper how our loved ones in the nether are faring. I don't think he liked the answer.


Finn arrived home from work to find that his wife of only a few weeks had been taken from him. Strangely, I remembered that I had been married to Walker for a similarly short time, and I felt a pang of regret at the thought. It's been a lifetime since I last thought of him; what brings him to my mind now?


In all the commotion, Darius had his birthday with no celebration in front of his easel. Raging hormones, here we come.


I was never close to Darren Dreamer, but still I am struck by the similarities Darius shows. I suppose it's to be expected; he is a clone, after all.


Finally, Saturday came around, and this time it was to be a double birthday. Finn invited half the town over to celebrate his daughter's birthday as well as her mother's.


She's an eccentric girl, our Emily, no doubt about that. How she manages to sleep with those goggles still on her head baffles me.


Next came Sara, joining the ranks of elders in the household. Note that Darleen Matlapin and Jaycen Hendrix, here, still seem just as young as the day I moved into town. My creaky joints are jealous of their youth.


Another mortal elder, which means only a few weeks until we have another visit from the reaper. Sigh I must direct my thoughts elsewhere, lest I bury myself in maudlin memories.

[Trip]

RIP Yuna.

I love how Emily's purple eyes match the rest of her wardrobe! She and Darius are both lovely young sims.

[Rhoxi]

Emily in particular looks awesome. Good luck to Finn on getting that nectar achievement to pop. His aging up face is just adorable.

[Lasnien]

*Tiptoes in and looks around hesitantly, brushing cobwebs from shoulders* So, yeah. Six months? Terribly sorry about that; awfully difficult to use a desktop PC with a toddler who shouldn’t be allowed to play in all the wires that form a rat’s nest beneath the desk. I now have access to a laptop capable of playing The Sims 3, and hopefully it won’t balk at the ever-growing file size of a dynasty save.

To be perfectly honest, I almost gave up on this file out of fear that it wouldn’t load on my laptop, but with Gen 4 so close to immortality and Gen 5 almost ready to bring in Gen 6, I couldn’t bear to start over.

Once again, thanks to everyone still interested in my rarely-updated story, and especially to Rhoxi and Trip for your comments. Without further ado…

Darius and Emily entered their teenage days just in time for the Love Day dance at the spring festival. Things started out rather platonic.


As the day wore on, the kids got more comfortable with each other, edging closer and closer.


Seems poor Darius needs a little more practice at this whole dancing thing. Despite these issues, they were named King and Queen of the Spring Dance.


I do hope you’ll forgive an old woman her meddling, but I’m so pleased with how things are turning out.


Dear Finn has won his final election and been named Leader of the Free World. The Medley family now has the foremost authorities in science, medicine, crime, and politics. Four more leaders to go…


The spring festival isn’t the only dance important to our youngest family members, of course. By the end of the night, I overheard that Darius and Emily were “SimBook official” whatever that means, and there was a new pair of crowns sitting on the counter the next morning.


The folks that keep track of such things never confirmed that Finn completed his Vizard of Vine challenge, so I planted several Avornolino grape vines for him to harvest the grapes himself. Despite picking plenty of the fruit and turning them into wine himself, he still hasn’t received acknowledgement from the powers-that-be. I hope this won’t affect our mission.


Meanwhile, Emily has continued with her inventions, leading to some heated moments, heh heh.


Week 27 held little of note, save a pair of birthdays. Garret did, however, somehow see his old imaginary friend from childhood for the first time in weeks. He didn’t seem pleased to see her.


Darius reached his young adulthood first.


I still find myself amazed by the technology that allowed us to make such an exact clone of the man I nearly chose as my own mate. How would things have changed had I done so? I can hardly imagine my family being anything other than it has been.


Emily’s birthday followed the next day, of course.


I do adore the dress she’s chosen for her formal wear, and her athletic outfit certainly seems to confirm my early suspicions regarding her profession of choice.


Perhaps we won’t have long to wait for the next generation of Medleys…


Newsworthy Notes:
Lionel Lancaster - paramour of dear little Sandra nearly twenty weeks ago - has finally succumbed to the ravages of time, preceded by his lover and daughter. He is survived (barely) by his granddaughter Sara and great-granddaughter Emily.
Sara has finally reached the top of the culinary ladder and immediately retired upon getting back home.

[Rhoxi]

Well, holy crap! Welcome back, again.  Glad to see they both grew up so lovely; they're gonna make one pretty nooboo.

[Trip]

I hope your laptop holds up. While I would understand if you had to abandon the dynasty, I'd be very sad.

They're both beautiful young adults. I forgot about Lionel, though. Poor, forgotten, outside-of-the-household babydaddy.

[Lasnien]

Thank you, thank you! I expect there are going to be lots of townie deaths upcoming due to less computing power on the laptop compared to my desktop, which makes me sad. Long chapter, lots going on, so here we go.

At the first of the week, it came as no surprise that Emily and Darius chose to make their relationship official.


Darius was eager to get married then and there, but Emily had a couple of things she wanted to take care of first.


First up was a solo trip to the family house in China to work on her inventing challenges. Nobody in town wants to hear all the explosions involved, so off she went to terrorize the poor Chinese folks.


I don’t know precisely how this ghost got there, but she was understandably upset by the roaring infernos that Emily’s detonations caused.


After a week or so away blowing up cheap washing machines and collecting the scrap, Emily returned home to attend her bachelorette party at the art gallery. There was much fizzy nectar sprayed all over the place, thankfully missing all of the artworks.


Sara gave the toast for her daughter, though I’m afraid she may have had too much nectar beforehand, directing it at the wall like that.


The next day dawned and saw the bachelorette party still raging on, with all the Medley women (myself included) due at work in a matter of hours. Judicious use of moodlet managers allowed us all to function through the workday while preparations were being made at home for our little girl’s wedding day. Emily pulled Finn and Sara aside for a little chat before the guests started arriving.


Emily and Darius took their place beneath the arch while the guests found their seats by the light of the full moon. Some of the guests (and Darius) were uneasy attending an outdoor wedding on zombie night, but we’ve never had one make it onto our fenced property.


Obligatory shot of the bride’s sappy wedding face…


...and Darius rushed immediately toward the cake, hoping to get it cut and get indoors as quickly as possible. But, where is Emily going?


Oh. Oscar (Arellano) Vasquez apparently forgot his plasma fruit and starved to death while Emi and Dar got married. There certainly seems to be a rash of deaths among the original residents of Lucky Palms. I think I need to look into possible causes for this phenomenon. Meanwhile, Darius cut the cake without Emily - or anyone else, for that matter.


When everyone had left (the mood thoroughly ruined by the grim one’s presence) Darius and Emily retired to the master suite to spend some time alone.


The next day dawned quiet, a nice change of pace after the excitement of party after party, and aside from a little nausea on Emily’s part it stayed that way until nearly midnight. Goodbye, sweet Sara. 91 days were too few.


A few hours later, Emily discovered a need for a new wardrobe, for a couple of days at least.


Finn, party animal that he is, threw himself a crazy bash for his elder birthday immediately after work. Somehow, he didn’t feel as if he was the sole focus of the room as he blew out his candles for the last time.


He felt an unfamiliar chill from behind him as the sparkles washed over him. In fact, the chill seemed to be coming from the direction of his old friend Dianna Grace.


Garret took offense to the reaper’s insistence on crashing his son’s birthday party and stealing a piece of cake while here.


Silly Finn closed his eyes while I was taking pictures of his new wardrobe and then refused to let me retake them. Whoever heard of a politician that didn’t love the camera?


Early Saturday, we heard shouting from the basement, where Emily had her inventing table, and we knew that it must be time to meet the sixth Medley to live here in Lucky Palms.


It is my great honor to introduce Dominic Medley! He’s a good couch potato with a preference for the color orange and a love for dark wave music and potato and truffle tortes.


Notable deaths: Oscar Arellano Vasquez at the wedding; Carie Hudson, daughter of Ariel Hudson Medley and Kinslee Hudson, Garret’s half-sister.

[Trip]

Welcome to Dominic! Do I sense a writer?

I also eagerly await seeing his future spouse, but I guess that's for a little later.

[Lasnien]

I'm having trouble deciding what to do about his spouse. I'm tempted to clone him up a townie like Darius, but then I'm afraid she'd live too long for Gen 7 to produce an heir. On the other hand, if none of the townie women are still available by the time he's old enough to reproduce (and Darius passes so there's room for an immediate child) I'll have to go to Egypt for a non-cloneface spouse. I'm so torn.

[Trip]

You could clone a spouse a little later in Dom's life. It would mean that he would have to wait until he's a lot older to have a child, but there would be a better chance of her still being young enough for a child. Egypt sounds like a good idea too, but if travel bugs out, you're out of luck.

[Lasnien]

I guess I'm just getting a little impatient and want to produce heirs as quickly as possible. I've been working on this family line since just after the release of Pets and I'd like to see it finished before Sims 4 distracts me away. I didn't even think about just waiting to produce Gen 7 until the mother was old enough to have little chance of hanging around too long.

Also, good guess based on just two traits!