Author Topic: End of the Line Dynasty (4x4)  (Read 179131 times)

Offline hazelnut

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: Two Honeymoons (5 October)
« Reply #75 on: October 07, 2013, 04:43:42 AM »
Aw, sorry to hear your pollination plans were delayed. But hey, it's such a cute delay, who can really mind? Zoe's color is fantastic; what a great shade. I can't wait to see Lily and Adam's nooboo. I bet it's going to be a non-literal explosion of cuteness. (Now I'm trying to imagine a literal explosion of cuteness?) I had a similar experience with Everette's shutternut challenge too. It would register, then randomly un-register, then pop back up again, but it never forgot that the actual collections were finished.

Hmm... a literal explosion of cuteness.  Would that be a good or a bad thing?   :-\

Photography is weird.  The last time I looked, Adam's skill journal said he had 4 out of 5 challenges finished but listed 5 as complete.  He's actually done 6.  It knows he's taken all the 'Travel' photos but that's no longer enough to complete the collection, it seems.  Oh well.  Nutella says it counts anyway (and it was all still registering when gen 2 arrived).

Offline hazelnut

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty
« Reply #76 on: October 10, 2013, 01:03:47 PM »
Children, Grandchildren, Genies and Ghosts



Lily realised she was pregnant while Zoë was still a toddler.  The generations were starting to get a little muddled.  Adam liked it, though.  Not many expectant fathers get to practise their parenting skills on their own baby sister.



Lily came over all Earth Mother and spent most of her pregnancy pottering about the garden in her swimsuit.



Then the labour pains hit and she took herself straight off to hospital.  Maybe it was because of what happened to her hair.



So Philip entered the world and the house was suddenly full of proud grandparents.

There was a round of birthdays.  Zoë aged up from a cute toddler…



…into a serious schoolgirl…



…and Cassidy took Philip to his first cake.



At least she had the chance to meet her grandson properly and to see that he’d inherited her ears and her greenness (and then some…)



Later that night, Grim came for her.



She was ready to go.  She’d lived well past her appointed time.  Nick, who’d been taking mud baths in the newly-installed sauna at the Lodge, and who was vegetarian into the bargain, should have kept going for quite a while yet.  Maybe he just couldn’t bear to be without Cass.  He only outlived her by a few hours.



Everyone except Philip, who was too young to understand, was devastated by losing two family members in such quick succession – but life had to go on.  Zoë needed tutoring for school and Philip had toddler skills to learn.



Sam and Sophia went to the salon to update their images slightly.  Or so they claimed.  Really, Sophia had finally managed to drag Sam along to her optician’s.  As a lifelong speccy four-eyes, Sophia was fine with her varifocals.  It just meant she could enjoy both books and distant views again.  Sam, on the other hand, kept protesting that he was far too young and fit to need reading glasses.  In the end, he settled for prescription sunglasses instead.  Of course, he kept taking them off, saying he couldn’t see any better than before.  Which he probably couldn’t, unless he was in a very bright light.  He wasn’t fooling anyone, of course.  Lily thought it was hilarious.



They were beginning to acquire quite a graveyard in the back garden.  There were Emmaline, Cassidy and Nick – and Jess, who might have finished her life separated from the rest of them but would always be one of the founders as far as the family was concerned – but there was also a growing collection of other townies.  Adam was still trying to snap A Serious Ghost Problem.  It didn’t look likely to happen, since the ghosts only ever seemed to haunt in pairs.  Still, some of them were trying to help.  One did his best to become Doubly Dead



…but just ended up with a headache and ectoplasmic bruising.

The children/grandchildren continued to grow up.



Zoë managed to achieve a teenaged level of embarrassment about parents even before the sparkles hit.



And then there were no babies in the house.



At least, for a short time.




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Offline hazelnut

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty
« Reply #77 on: October 10, 2013, 01:04:33 PM »
Children, Grandchildren, Genies and Ghosts (continued)

Not put off in the slightest by her previous labour or her advancing years, Sophia gave birth at home.





They named him Luke.

The family was beginning to blend together.  Somehow, it no longer mattered that some of the kids were a generation later than the others.  More and more, it felt like a family with four parents and three children…  No, make that four children.



Not that the household was limited to humans.  The ghosts continued to haunt, sometimes staying out of their graves well into the day.  Cassidy, in particular, seemed to have forgotten she was no longer officially part of the family and could often be found loading the washer or reading bedtime stories.  And then there were the genies…

Deirdra had promised help, and they were grateful.  They were.  If you had to buy up the whole town, you couldn’t possibly be too rich – even if Sam was raking in serious quantities of tips these days.  But some of the genies were a bit of a trial.  There was that one who appeared for the first time wearing the family’s virtual reality goggles.



The last time anyone had seen them, they had been on the table next to her lamp.  Had she somehow managed to reach out and grab them?

Another one changed out of her uniform the moment she materialised and started playing in the sprinkler.



It was some time before Sam could persuade her to stop for long enough to grant a wish.



Luke aged up and became good friends with Philip, united by their shared liking for hats and a particularly silly version of Peep-Bo.



“Boo!”  (Very deep voice): “I am your nephew, Luke.”



Then Phil had another birthday and they had to give up their game.



Lily managed to get through her second labour without any sudden changes of hairstyle or rushing off to hospital.



She snuggled her colourful new son close – and he started screaming the place down.



Phil retained his fondness for entertaining babies and could usually be found playing with little Martin once his homework was finished.



And then it was birthday time for the two youngest members of the family…



…and for the eldest one.

While Sophia was on her way to the dresser, she noticed that another genie had appeared.  This one looked oddly familiar – although she insisted that she was called Tiana Ransom.  Really.



Well, if she wasn’t Deirdra, she couldn’t object to what Sophia had in mind.  She’d been feeling the cold lately.

“That’s better.”




Next chapter

Offline RainBeau

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: double update 10 October
« Reply #78 on: October 10, 2013, 02:43:29 PM »
Zoë definitely has the Goole eyes! And Philip is quite the handsome heir. I think all this batch of kids are quite cute, even if I'm getting incredibly confused between generations ::)
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Offline Snufflesxx

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: double update 10 October
« Reply #79 on: October 10, 2013, 04:58:12 PM »
So many kids! I had to reread it just to make sure I knew who belonged to who! Haha, but you can't have too many nooboos, right?  ;D
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Offline hazelnut

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: double update 10 October
« Reply #80 on: October 11, 2013, 05:39:13 AM »
Zoë definitely has the Goole eyes! And Philip is quite the handsome heir.

The Goole eyes seem to be quite dominant.  As you say, Zoë certainly has them in undiluted form and it looks as though Martin has, too, but all of Sam’s descendants seem to have inherited the downward slant to their eyes.  The Earthsong ears are also all-conquering :).  I’m a little disappointed that Philip, as the second heir, is the only one of the kids who doesn’t seem to be a rainboo.  Even though his skin colour is great, I’m pretty sure it’s plain old green, just well across the slider.  He is quite good-looking, though, at least as a teen.  The story’s almost caught up with the game and he hasn’t quite grown up yet.

I think all this batch of kids are quite cute, even if I'm getting incredibly confused between generations ::)
So many kids! I had to reread it just to make sure I knew who belonged to who! Haha, but you can't have too many nooboos, right?  ;D

I was getting them confused too, until I noticed that all of Sam and Sophia’s kids (Adam, Zoë and Luke) have normal(ish)-to-yellow skin, while Adam and Lily’s are green (Philip) and pink (Martin).  I’ve added the kids’ pictures to the family tree, which ought to help  :).

Offline rarespawn

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: double update 10 October
« Reply #81 on: October 11, 2013, 03:02:07 PM »
I am really loving this story...I love rainboos!!  Can't wait to see what happens next!



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Offline hazelnut

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: double update 10 October
« Reply #82 on: October 12, 2013, 04:54:07 AM »
I am really loving this story...I love rainboos!!  Can't wait to see what happens next!

Thanks.  It's always nice to hear from new commenters.  This is my first rainboo family (although the Gooles were pretty colourful in their own way :) ) and I'm enjoying seeing how each new baby turns out.  It'll be a while before the next one, though - the house is full again.

Offline hazelnut

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty
« Reply #83 on: October 13, 2013, 10:10:40 AM »
A Day of Disasters

The pace of life was slowing down – and not just because Sam and Sophia had reached old age.  The family was established; rich, even.  There was time for the kids to enjoy being children and teens.  Philip and Zoë went to Prom together, although not, of course, as a couple.



As usual, the night was not without incident.  Zoë had a good time, apart from someone else turning up in the same dress.  Phil got into a fight but also had his first kiss.  Zoë was Prom Queen, naturally.  She was close to leaving school and had a wide circle of friends, who all voted for her.  More surprisingly, Phil, who’d only started at high school the previous day, was voted Prom King.  Maybe it was his young aunt’s influence.



A few days later, Sam took Sophia out for lunch at the bistro – and an apology.

“Soph, I’m sorry I was such an idiot about growing older.  It’s hard when you come from a near-immortal family to feel yourself getting old and decrepit.  I expected starting out in poverty to be the hardest part of this.  Old age was so far off then that I never really thought about it.  When I realised I had to let go and pass the baton on to Adam and young Pip, I couldn’t handle it.
“Then I saw how you just… accepted everything.  The bad things along with the good.  I'm sorry.  I’m a daft old codger but I’ll try to do better from now on.”



“I noticed you’d got some sensible glasses at last… and a jumper.”
“I got tired of not being able to see properly.  And you’re right.  It does get cold up on the mountain.”
“Especially if you jump in the sprinkler every chance you get.”
“Well, Grandpa Joe would never let me play in his when I was a kid.  He only had a small garden and there were plants packed in all around the sprinkler.  I’m playing now I have the chance.  You should take some time off, too, you know.”



“Well, I do have my books – but there are still things I want to do for the kids.  I’ve been writing my family’s story, so our descendants will know where I came from.  Maybe you could do something similar.”



“Maybe – although I kind of feel Mum covered our family pretty thoroughly.  Not that anyone here knows that, of course.  Thinking of which… you remember Grim said I should stay away from my old friends for a while?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they’ve been to see me play any number of times but we’ve not really spoken.  I was thinking of inviting them round, before it’s too late for all of us.  Maybe tomorrow, for all the birthdays?”
“Sounds good to me.  Now, Mr Daft Old Codger, what about that meal?  And maybe we could visit the Lodge afterwards, for old times’ sake.  I could do with a shower…”



The next morning, Zoë, who was learning to cook, made waffles for breakfast.  She was so pleased with the way they’d turned out that she mixed up a second batch – but then the school bus arrived and she rushed off for her last day, forgetting to ask someone else to take them out of the oven.   The first the others knew about it was the fire alarm going off.  By the time the firefighters had put the blaze out, two counters had gone as well as the cooker.  This was not a good way to start a day that would feature birthday cakes pretty heavily.

Rather nervously, Sam took their youngest grandchild to his second cake.



Everything was fine, of course.  Martin went off to sort out his new look and Sophia prepared for the big party while Sam phoned the Shues.

No-one was quite clear about what happened next but suddenly the alarm was going off again and the brand-new cooker was in flames.



This time, the fire brigade arrived before the blaze had time to spread.

Meanwhile, Zoë and Phil were catching the school bus for the last time.



It would have been Zoë’s birthday anyway but Phil had talked the adults into letting him have an early cake.  Although he wasn’t particularly academically inclined, he’d achieved an A.  Now he wanted to get on with adult life.

After two fires in a single day, they decided not to tempt fate any further.  The birthday candles would be lit outdoors.  Phil was the first to blow his out.



The guests arrived just in time to join in the cheering and grab a slice of cake...



...but Carlotta Shue had barely started eating when she began to sparkle.



Sam’s reunion with his old friends wasn’t going too well.



Rather than leaving immediately, Grim hung around chatting to Adam and Phil.



After all, he was taking a special interest in this family.  It was only reasonable that he’d want to get to know the first two heirs.  Or maybe he liked parties.  Or he was just saving on travelling time.  In quick succession, he collected two of the remaining Shues: Gary and Star.

Dany had had enough.  He hurried off home before Grim decided to complete his set, walking straight though Zoë, who was ageing up without cake at the bottom of the stairs.



Adam had the good sense to keep to himself the one positive outcome of a singularly disastrous party: he’d finally managed to capture A Serious Ghost Problem.

Everyone had forgotten Luke.  He was still outside, celebrating his birthday all by himself.



By the time everyone else (including Grim) realised and rushed out to cheer rather guiltily, Luke had given up and gone indoors to find some new clothes.



As the clock ticked away the last few minutes of the most eventful day any of them could remember, Zoë and Phil sorted out their young adult looks.


                                                       Generation 1: Zoë as a young adult and Luke as a teen


                                                       Generation 2: Phil as a young adult and Martin as a child

Then everyone retired, thankfully, to bed.  It was a good thing the next day was a Saturday.


Next chapter



According to the pop-up message when Dany left: “Awkward.  Boring.  Uneventful.  These are just three of the adjectives that could be used to describe this recent group outing.”  Er, what?  I'd hate to see an exciting time by his standards.

Offline Rhoxi

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: A Day of Disasters (13 October)
« Reply #84 on: October 14, 2013, 02:04:18 PM »

Let's see that's one Grim, two fires, three deaths, and four birthdays?! Good grief!

Offline hazelnut

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: A Day of Disasters (13 October)
« Reply #85 on: October 14, 2013, 03:29:53 PM »
Let's see that's one Grim, two fires, three deaths, and four birthdays?! Good grief!

Yep, that about sums it up.  A pretty mad day, all considered.

Offline fanofaband

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: A Day of Disasters (13 October)
« Reply #86 on: October 14, 2013, 03:44:00 PM »
I'm a dork, but this popped in my head when I read this.

In the Second Generation, my Watcher gave to me,
Four birthday cakes,
Three new ghosts,
Two blazing fires,
And the Grim Reaper at a party!

...anyway, I love this dynasty, even though I'm so confused as to who belongs to who anymore.  Great work!

Offline Snufflesxx

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: A Day of Disasters (13 October)
« Reply #87 on: October 14, 2013, 04:17:05 PM »
Haha, nice one, fanofaband!

It's nice seeing all the kids grown up. Phil is very handsome (and that's my favourite hat!)  :D
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Offline hazelnut

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty: A Day of Disasters (13 October)
« Reply #88 on: October 14, 2013, 04:28:08 PM »
I'm a dork, but this popped in my head when I read this.

In the Second Generation, my Watcher gave to me,
Four birthday cakes,
Three new ghosts,
Two blazing fires,
And the Grim Reaper at a party!

...anyway, I love this dynasty, even though I'm so confused as to who belongs to who anymore.  Great work!
Haha, nice one, fanofaband!

Brilliant!  I really, really wish I'd thought of that  :D.

It's nice seeing all the kids grown up. Phil is very handsome (and that's my favourite hat!)  :D

I'm very pleased with the way this family is turning out so far - and Phil's probably the best-looking.  I like the hat, too (and it's a style that helps to hide the generous Earthsong ears :P).  Unfortunately, the townies seem to agree.  There are at least three or four other young men wearing it around Hidden Springs.  It's getting very confusing  ???.

Offline hazelnut

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Re: End of the Line Dynasty
« Reply #89 on: October 16, 2013, 02:54:53 PM »
In Search of an Exciting Career

The next day was graduation.  Everyone was very excited about it.  Ridiculously so, in Phil’s opinion.  None of them had been to a graduation before.  Grandma Sophia said they’d not had them in Sunset Valley in her day and Granddad Sam hadn’t bothered to go to his.  Too much the disaffected teenager, he said.  Mum and Dad had both been too keen to get on with their careers to waste time on ceremonies – which didn’t mean they were going to let Phil get away with it.  No, he was stuck with hanging around at the Town Hall for hours in a silly outfit and an even sillier hat.



He'd have to choose a career soon.  Zoë had already registered as a self-employed artist, although she had inherited her parents' love of learning and didn't plan to restrict herself to a single skill.  Things were different for Phil - but he still had plenty of choices.  He quite fancied a profession, although he had a feeling that his mother wanted him to become a doctor.  Fat chance.  Grandma Sophia, for some reason, wanted him to be a scientist.  Well, in fact, he had a feeling he knew what the reason was.  She’d caught him playing with fire one evening and he’d had to pass it off as ‘an experiment’.





Dad said he didn’t care what Phil did for a living, so long as he earned lots of money.  That was a joke.  Probably.  In fact, Phil was pretty sure that Dad was expecting him to sign up as a ghost hunter.  It was true that he’d been fascinated by the supernatural since he was little.  That was Granddad Sam’s doing.  He told the best ghost stories.



He said it was because he was descended from a long line of ghosts – and so was Phil.  Granddad even said he’d been a ghost himself, when he was younger.  This puzzled Phil for a long time.  How could someone be a ghost, then turn into an ordinary person?  He knew grandfathers liked to tease.  Maybe claiming to be an ex-ghost was just part of that – like tickling you into hysteria, asking whether you'd got a girlfriend yet or calling you ‘Pip’ when you were way too old for that kind of baby stuff.  He couldn’t quite see the point but, hey, old people were odd.

Some of his schoolfriends didn’t believe in ghosts at all, which was silly.  Of course ghosts were real.  Loads of them lived in the back garden.  Nanna Cassidy was a ghost.  A nice ghost.  She read him bedtime stories.

As he grew older, Phil kept getting into trouble for sneaking off to the graveyard after stupid curfew.  Going somewhere spooky at night was good fun and the cemetery ghosts had their own tales to tell.



But he wasn’t sure ghost hunting was right for him.  A banshee banisher sounded like a pretty cool thing to have but ghosts were people, not things to banish.  Some of his best friends were spooks...

Time to go in.  Time for boring speeches.  Straighten your mortar board, Phil.



At last it was over.  Phil graduated well and was voted Most Likely to Achieve His Lifetime Wish, like his father before him.  He had a feeling he might take a bit longer, though.  Everyone knew that Dad had completed his wish a couple of days after leaving school.  Zoë, who had become the first member of the family to make the honour roll, was Valedictorian and Most Likely to Join the Cast of The Simpsons Most Artistic.



While everyone was gathering round to congratulate her, Phil made his escape.  He’d decided what he wanted to do with his life.  Yesterday’s excitements had been the clincher.





They wouldn’t let him start until Monday but the other firefighters suggested he should work on his handiness skills in the meantime.  Maybe he could even earn a promotion or two before his first official shift.

His parents were delighted.  It seemed they’d been storing up blocked toilets in the basement for some time, waiting for someone who could deal with them.  So that was what the smell was.  Everyone was very keen to tell him that his great-grandmother Louisa, who was famous in some other world, had started out the same way.



Stockpiling broken loos; relatives in parallel universes.  Sometimes he wondered about his family’s sanity.  As if to prove it, Grandma Sophia shooed him away before he’d even finished unblocking the first toilet.  Apparently, she was far too desperate to use a functioning one indoors, in private.



At least he got to work on the alarm and the fire engine at the station, even if they wouldn’t let him respond to emergencies yet.





That was rather worrying: he hadn’t noticed his colleagues rushing off to put out fires, either.  Even if they did, he wasn’t sure how useful they’d be.  Randolph and Jaclyn were pleasant enough co-workers but neither was exactly in the first flush of youth.





Every evening after tea, it was back to the repairs.  Once he’d finished fixing the plumbing, they produced his next wonderful graduation present: a broken dishwasher.  Also the first of several, it seemed.



He asked Randolph when he’d be allowed to handle an emergency, instead of all this maintenance and upgrading.  Ran said it was up to Jackie.  He’d never wanted to be a firefighter anyway.  He wanted to sing.  In fact, he was going off to the coffeehouse right now to audition for a gig.

So the Fire Department was down to a force of two: a bossy old woman and a newbie.

At last, something changed.  Jaclyn sent him to Egypt to demonstrate his ability to disable tomb traps.  He wasn’t quite sure of the relevance – OK, some involved fire or steam, and so had a vague resemblance to your standard domestic emergency, but it seemed unlikely that he’d have to deal with anaesthetic darts in Hidden Springs.



Maybe it was some kind of test.  The day after his return, he was finally allowed out to deal with a large fire.  Now this was what he’d joined the Service for.  Rushing off with lights flashing and sirens blaring.



Screeching to a halt outside a burning building and reeling out the hose.



Putting on protective gear to deal with sudden flare-ups.



Attacking doors with his axe...



...and then kicking them in.



Great stuff.  He even got to strike heroic poses and have his muscles admired.



A pity it wasn’t her big sister, though.

And then Jaclyn pointed out that he hadn’t finished upgrading his fire extinguisher.  Sigh.




Next chapter



As with Steward and Joe in the Life States, Phil was unable to go to his first few emergencies – they cancelled as soon as he tried.  At least he’s not trying to complete the Firefighter Superhero LTW.

I have no idea what happened with Randolph Rico.  He suddenly appeared in Phil’s relationship panel as a friend instead of a colleague, with his job given as Sing-A-Gram Novice.  He died a few days later.



I realise I haven’t said anything about the names for this dynasty.  Like the Gooles, all of the kids will have family names (although most will be more recent) but there is also a second theme for the heirs.  Since this dynasty has something of an end-of-Sims 3 feeling, all of the heirs will be named after earlier Sims.  Most (as with Adam and Philip) fit both categories.

The original Adam was the founder of my Apocalypse Challenge family.  (I abandoned the game somewhere around generation four or five when it became too much like other challenges – largely a question of getting through different lifetime wishes.)  Poor Adam never ate a proper meal and was usually hungry.  Since he was, almost inevitably, in the military career, he started working out as soon as he got a job and spent his whole life from the middle of the first morning until extreme old age surrounded by nasty green clouds.  Despite all of this, he easily achieved a large tombstone.  His rather less smelly namesake has followed in his footsteps and had the necessary points before his adult birthday.

Phil is named after a female Sim (:o).  Philippa Stone was my legacy founder, my first da Vinci (I’d just bought Ambitions when I started the game) and the first Sim I played all the way through to old age and death.  And yes, she did marry Christopher Steel.  In my defence, that was also a first, at least for me.

 

anything