Author Topic: A Bunch of Flowers (A ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Project)  (Read 61204 times)


Offline hazelnut

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Re: A Bunch of Flowers (A ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Project)
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2015, 07:07:22 AM »
Over the last month or so, I’ve been playing around with various challenges, including several false starts on ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’  Very false starts – only one of them got as far as the first birth.  I eventually decided I’d been going about it the wrong way (for me at least), concentrating too hard on the points and spending far too long in preparation, rather than just getting on with producing lots of kids.  I’m going to try to complete father clusters but otherwise not worry about the overall score.

I’m playing on medium speed, with the settings slightly tweaked to make the child and teen stages the same length.  (One of the attractions of the challenge for me is having kids who can just enjoy their childhood, rather than having to complete tasks and, with so many of them, it’ll be well worth buying all of the toys.)

All expansions are enabled, including the recently-acquired Into the Future.



So, on with the challenge.  Meet Alison Flower; flower child by name and nature, and would-be mother of many.

1.Alison.jpg

(Rather wonderfully, the game decided that she was a product of the School of Peace and Love.  Clearly it knows a hippy when it sees one.)  She popped into existence on an empty lot in Riverview…

2.Empty_lot.jpg

…and hurried off in search of eligible bachelors.

3.Jon_and_Jeb.jpg

She liked both Jebidiah and Jon but there was no real spark.  Given the strains she’s going to put on the marriage, she’d better get on really well with her husband.  OK, bear them in mind as future fathers and try someone nearer her own age.

4.Billy.jpg

Now that’s more like it.

5.The_one.jpg

“Yes, Hazel, he’s The One.”

6.Definitely.jpg

So Alison invited Billy back to her half-built house and proposed.

7.Proposal.jpg

A building site is clearly a much more romantic location than I’d thought.  He accepted…

8.Wedding.jpg

…and, as the sun was setting the following day, they had a private wedding on the riverbank.

9.Wedding.jpg

“Are you sure you’re OK with this?  A house full of other men’s kids?”
“Yeah, I see it as a test – if we really love each other, none of that should matter.”
“Oh Billy, that’s so romantic!”

10.Wedding.jpg

“And anyway, as long as they leave me alone to paint, I’m fine.”

They spent their honeymoon in Shang Simla…

11.Honeymoon.jpg

…and with the money raised from the sale of Billy’s car, their smelted telescopic metals and the Chinese books they’d ‘accidentally’ packed in their luggage (I really disapprove of that exploit.  Just not quite enough to turn down the easy cash :P), they were able to move from Alison’s cottage by the river into somewhere larger and more family-friendly.

12.Move.jpg

(In fact, they ended up moving twice.  I’d deleted almost everything from Trade Winds but managed to miss a few hygienators lurking under furniture and had left the master bathroom unchanged, not realising that the plumbing would have kept its upgrades.  I’d flattened and re-dug the ponds, thinking that would get rid of the fish, but found that they’d spawned again.  Since I don’t want Alison to have any unfair advantages - like a pond full of deathfish :) – I moved them into a new, cleaned-up version of the house a few days later.)

13.Artists.jpg

After a day or two of romantic and artistic pursuits, both Alison and Billy had enough points for the No Jealousy reward.  It was time to make a start on that large family.



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Offline KRae

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Re: A Bunch of Flowers (A ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Project)
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2015, 10:42:29 AM »
About Billy, if you give him a computer, he probably won't care what Alison does. He'll be too busy making inappropriate posts and very little else.


Offline hazelnut

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Re: A Bunch of Flowers (A ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Project)
« Reply #4 on: July 14, 2015, 02:27:16 PM »
About Billy, if you give him a computer, he probably won't care what Alison does. He'll be too busy making inappropriate posts and very little else.

At the moment he’s completely addicted to sculpting but I’ll certainly bear it in mind if he starts looking bored  :).

Another Hazelnut project? Yes please! Looking forward to this one.

Awww, thanks, Malley  :-[  ;D

Offline hazelnut

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Re: A Bunch of Flowers (A ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Project)
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2015, 02:48:28 PM »
Starting a Family

Alison invited Jon Lessen over for a chat and discovered that he had become a witch since the last time she’d seen him.  Then she turned on the charm.

14.First_father.jpg

Jon, hopeless romantic that he is, was putty in her hands…

15.First_father.jpg

…and they quickly ended up in the shower together.  Out of nostalgia (or something), Ally took to spending a lot of time in the bathroom over the next day or so.

16.Pregnant.jpg

Rather sweetly, she had constant romantic wishes for Billy throughout her pregnancy – and he didn’t appear to be at all averse to woohoo with a rapidly expanding partner… but she was on her own, gardening, when the contractions started.  Billy was out completing an opportunity.

17.Delivery.jpg

“Ow!  You mean I have to do this twenty-six times?  Where’s the get-out clause?”

Then, with remarkably bad timing, the sprinklers came on.

18.Poppy_birth.jpg

Fortunately, the sparkles started before much longer and Poppy arrived.  Alison was immediately besotted.  In fact, she was so lost in the joys of motherhood that she totally ignored the second baby who had unexpectedly materialised in the middle of her veggie patch.

19.And_Primrose.jpg

Billy, who’d just arrived back home, was ordered to pick up and cuddle Primrose while a second cot and teddy were purchased.



As toddlers, both girls turned out to have inherited Alison’s green eyes and pointy ears, along with Jon’s hair colour (and, disappointingly, neither was a witch).

20.Twin_toddlers.jpg

Ally continued to dote on her firstborn, constantly rolling wishes to play with Poppy or teach her skills.

21.Ally_and_Poppy.jpg

Maybe she knew something I didn’t: Primrose could look scary at times.  (She has the friendly trait but it doesn’t exactly spring to the attention.)

22.Peepbo.jpg

23.Scary_Prim.jpg

Finally, after Poppy had learned all of her toddler skills, Alison seemed to notice that she had another daughter.

24.Ally_and_Prim.jpg

With the twins fully trained and about to age up into children, Ally went out in pursuit of Father No. 2.

25.Ally_and_Jeb.jpg

Jebidiah Wilson had already become an elder, so there was no time to waste…

26.Ally_and_Jeb.jpg

…or maybe there was, after all.  Jeb's eyes don’t look quite the way I remember.

27.Werewolf_Jeb.jpg

Yep, brown border on the portrait.  Our Dr Wilson’s been bitten by a werewolf.



The twins grew up and started school…

28.School.jpg

…and began to develop their own interests.

29.Fishing.jpg

30.Royal_Court.jpg

(Honestly, Poppy's by far the keenest non-snobby Presider over the Royal Court I’ve yet come across.  Her childhood seemed to consist of little else.)

Ally was otherwise engaged.

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“Really, Watcher-person!  Haven’t you got bored of the upchucking photos yet?”
"Nope.  Sorry."

And then she realised that it wasn't food poisoning this time either.

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“Hazel, have you really not got anything better to do?"
(Watcher is tactfully silent.)

And, in due course, Lupin arrived.

33.Lupin.jpg

( :( Another non-supernatural Sim with his daddy’s hair – and eyes, this time.)

34.Toddler_Lupin.jpg

hazysmith

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Re: A Bunch of Flowers (A ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Project)
« Reply #6 on: July 14, 2015, 03:26:50 PM »
What a fun challenge! Looking forward to seeing all the kids, and who fathers them. Good luck!



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Offline Malley

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Re: A Bunch of Flowers (A ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Project)
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2015, 05:08:40 PM »
All of the kids are so cute. The first photo of Alison flirting with Jon was too funny. His face was priceless  ;D


Offline hazelnut

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Re: A Bunch of Flowers (A ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Project)
« Reply #9 on: July 18, 2015, 03:43:46 PM »
What a fun challenge! Looking forward to seeing all the kids, and who fathers them. Good luck!

Thank you.  It'll either be fun or immensely frustrating.  Or maybe both at once  ::).

All of the kids are so cute. The first photo of Alison flirting with Jon was too funny. His face was priceless  ;D

I've had a soft spot for Jon (read: guilt complex) ever since my first gold-digger Sim locked him in the bathroom to starve to death.  And he does pull great faces :).

I'm not sure why, but the sprinklers coming on gave me the giggles.

Me too  ;D.  Poor woman.  It's bad enough giving birth in the garden all on your own without the sprinklers coming on.  At least they mysteriously fail to soak Sims - or to leave them ankle-deep in mud.

Offline hazelnut

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Re: A Bunch of Flowers (A ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Project)
« Reply #10 on: July 18, 2015, 03:56:51 PM »
They Grow Up So Fast

Playing on medium speed, the kids seemed to grow up ridiculously quickly.

Poppy and Primrose were soon teens…

36.Teen_twins.jpg

…and Lupin became a child.

37.Child_Lupin.jpg

Alison and Billy were both now adults, despite his fondness for tattoos and her occasional visits to the salon for makeovers.  Ally’s garden was doing well but she wasn’t yet able to plant special seeds, and her fishing skill was still a long way short of being able to catch deathfish.  So Billy was prised away from his easel and sculpting station and made to learn alchemy, with a view to discovering the fountain of youth elixir and maybe a few other useful things, like wish-enhancing serum.  Fortunately, he seemed to enjoy that, too (and maybe had some kind of natural talent – he was my first alchemist to avoid accidental toadification).

Alison went out in search of her next victim lover.  Riverview seemed to be filling up with supernaturals, so maybe Fairy Dad could be next.  Unfortunately for my plans, George Dean proved resistant to her charms and Bob Newbie was more interested in frolicking with Constance Shelley in their tiny-ball-of-light forms.

35.Fairies.jpg

Sherman Bagley’s transformation was less obvious, until Ally started talking to him and discovered his new interest in kelp.

38.Sherman.jpg

She made a move…

39.Sherman.jpg

…not entirely successfully.  Maybe dehydration was setting in.  Whatever it was, he got away from her and headed for the pool.  She eventually persuaded him that the shower would work equally well.

39a.Sherman.jpg

She didn’t seem entirely happy afterwards – maybe his scales were rough.  On the other hand, she was delighted with the result.

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Gromwell was the first of her children to be born in the hospital, largely so that Billy could take her there and share the new baby moodlet.

41.Gromwell_birth.jpg

The paparazzi were starting to take an interest in her activities but so far she’d manage to avoid becoming a celebrity, to my considerable relief.   The constant disgrace was a big factor in giving up on earlier attempts at the challenge.

42.Gromwell_birth.jpg

There were more birthdays.  Gromwell became a toddler and definitely took after his father – apart from being yet another normal human…

44.Toddler_Gromwell.jpg

…and the twins had their young adult birthdays and so, sadly, had to move out.

45.YA_twins.jpg

They both got jobs before they left: Poppy followed her father into music and Primrose became a scientist.  Sadly, story progression being what it is (or rather isn’t  ::) ) these days, neither is likely to progress beyond the base grade or to achieve her lifetime wish (Golden Tongue, Golden Fingers and Become a Creature-Robot Crossbreeder, respectively).

They left behind some souvenirs of their schooldays.  Poppy had quite a collection…

46.Poppy_stuff.jpg

…and had also earned enough happiness points to buy her mother a magic vacuum.

43.Magic_vacuum.jpg

Primrose, who’d somehow managed to miss Prom and hadn’t been to any after-school clubs as a teen, largely because she was helping out with the garden, left only her scout’s sash.

47.Prim_stuff.jpg

Ally had a wish to learn the athletic skill and, immediately after getting her first point, had the ‘Going Pro’ opportunity. Since she’d just rolled one of her frequent wishes to quit her current job, she went off to the stadium and signed up.  Bob Newbie was one of her co-workers but definitely wasn’t interested in being more than a friend.  Travis McDermott, though, seemed more of a possibility.

49.Travis.jpg

She lured him home and into the shower.  No chimes.  :(  And then he accused her of having issues and stormed off.



Lupin and Gromwell had a shared birthday.

48.Lupin_Gromwell.jpg

Ally, still in the professional sports career, inadvertently became a celebrity as a result of talking to her colleagues: I hadn’t noticed that Tatiana Ivanov had acquired a star.  After work, she invited Travis over again.  Despite his earlier tantrum, he seemed quite happy to visit and even to join her in the shower again.  This time, there were chimes.

49a.Travis.jpg

(To me, Travis’ work outfit looks more suited to rock music than sports  :D.)

Ally’s first celebrity disgrace followed immediately after.  I’m not sure how she was caught cheating, given that they were alone in the house, but the ways of Sim paparazzi are mysterious.  Since previous attempts had convinced me that the Above Reproach reward is completely useless, she bought a moodlet manager instead and started learning social networking as a way of repairing damaged friendships.

The following day was Alison and Billy’s first wedding anniversary.  They went to the summer festival together and spent their time eating snow cones, skating and getting their photos taken – although Ally kept having to rush off to the loos to throw up.  That night, the pregnancy was confirmed.

50.Preggers_again.jpg

Ally spent most of this pregnancy hiding from the paparazzi, peacefully tending her garden and carving pumpkins.  For some reason, even though it’s perma-summer in Riverview, she decided that Hallowe’en must be approaching and wanted to be ready.  Or something.  Whatever the reason, carved pumpkins started appearing everywhere.

51.Pumpkins.jpg

And then smashed pumpkins – it appeared that Billy liked wrecking jack o’lanterns as much as Alison liked creating them.

Ally’s fifth child and third son was born in hospital, like his older brother.  Again, the paparazzi were in attendance – and Alison was in disgrace again, for ‘having a child out of wedlock’, despite being married.

53.Heath_born.jpg

Welcome, Heath.  It’s a strange world you’ve been born into  ::).

52.Rv_oddness.jpg

Offline Malley

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Oh, the sim paparazzi...they are mysterious and quite annoying. How they get their scoops, I have no idea  :o

Offline hazelnut

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Re: A Bunch of Flowers (A ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Project)
« Reply #12 on: July 25, 2015, 12:41:07 PM »
Oh, the sim paparazzi...they are mysterious and quite annoying. How they get their scoops, I have no idea  :o

Nor me, but it's certainly infuriating.   >:(



International Relations

Lupin grew up and followed his father into the medical profession.

54.YA_Lupin.jpg

Unlike the twins, he had time to graduate in absentia before reaching the move-out deadline and was voted most likely to achieve his lifetime wish of becoming a World-Renowned Surgeon - sadly, unlikely to be true.

55.Lupin_grad.jpg



Alison ran into two of her grown-up children when she visited the library to continue her social networking studies – but the reunion was interrupted by Hannah Jones transforming into her werewolf form and soon they were all too busy fainting to catch up with the family gossip.

56.Library.jpg

While she was in town, Ally met a Chinese tourist, Cheng Yang Chang, and invited him over…

57.Cheng.jpg

…with inevitable consequences.

58.Preggers.jpg

Her other children were growing up: Gromwell became a teenager and Heath, a toddler.

59.Birthdays.jpg

I hadn’t noticed Travis McDermott’s unusual eye colour until Heath inherited it.  I have no idea where the black hair came from, though.

Even before Gromwell had had time to sort out his new teenage look, he became the family’s first alien abductee.  At least he was too young to get pregnant.

60.Gromwell_adbucted.jpg

I was hoping he’d just met another potential father but the alien was clearly female.



Alison went into labour while she and Billy were playing in the sandpit together.  As you do  ;).

61.Labour.jpg

Apparently, this counts as ‘taking the mother to hospital’  ::).

62.Going_to_hospital.jpg

Orchid put in her appearance just before midnight…

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…and was taken home to join Heath in the nursery.

64.Full_nursery.jpg

As a toddler, she turned out to be the first child to have inherited Ally’s hair. She may even be a clone of her mother – Cheng’s genes certainly aren’t at all obvious.

65.Toddler_Orchid.jpg

Having had such a short baby stage, Orchid’s toddlerhood overlapped with Heath’s.  The two played together constantly (even though both had IF dolls) and were soon good friends.

66.Toddlers.jpg

I suddenly realised that Ally hadn’t asked Cheng to be ‘just friends’ before he’d returned to China, so she invited him to stay.  The poor man arrived to find her flirting with a French tourist.  She stopped chatting briefly to dump her Chinese lover and then turned back to her new interest.

67.Goodbye_Cheng.jpg

M Boutillier was eventually rejected as French Dad, largely because Gromwell came home from school that afternoon with the opportunity to go to France and interview one of the locals.  Since he was definitely Ally’s favourite child of the current crop and his moving-out day was looming, it seemed right for them to take a holiday together.

68.France.jpg

Most of the first day was taken up by driving lessons.  Both had been holding wishes since Gromwell’s birthday but they hadn’t yet had time to do much about it.

69.Driving_lessons.jpg

With his licence duly earned, Gromwell drove around exploring Champs les Sims while Alison scouted out potential partners.

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Yves Bernard, the nectar merchant, was the clear favourite…

71.Yves.jpg

…and she invited him to visit as soon as the holiday was over.  Their first shared shower failed to produce chimes and Ally was hungry and desperate for the loo, so she temporarily kicked him out while she attended to her other needs.  Then she went in search of her current flame…

72.Yves_and_Billy.jpg

…and found him in the living room, peacefully reading with her husband.  Oops!

With the French bun finally in the oven, Ally started looking around for the next father.  Riverview was filling up with EA clones and the remaining original male residents had either already contributed their genetic material to the Flower family or definitively indicated a lack of interest.  Billy’s newly acquired Map to the Stars showed a few one-star celebrities around town but a total lack of anyone more famous.  It was time to move on to somewhere with more variety.

They paused in their packing to let Heath celebrate a birthday…

73.Child_Heath.jpg

…and then the Flowers decamped to Barnacle Bay.

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To keep the family intact, I also moved the twins and Lupin (and his cat, Evil Genius).

75.Lupin_and_cat.jpg

A Sim second and real-life weekend later, the family’s new house appeared.

76.New_house.jpg

hazysmith

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Fantastic progress, how's Billy dealing with all the kids that clearly aren't his? Love the name of the cat!

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Offline hazelnut

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Fantastic progress, how's Billy dealing with all the kids that clearly aren't his?

Thanks :)

Billy's fine with the children - he's great with babies and reads quite a lot of bedtime stories, although Alison tends to take charge of the toddler training.  His relationship with Ally was also fine until she became a celebrity but has been hit by the repeated disgraces and is now in the red.  He still rolls frequent wishes to woohoo or skinny-dip with her, though.

Love the name of the cat!

I can't take any credit for that - Story Progression gave him the cat and named it (it's really EvilGenius without a space but I edited it slightly).  I agree it's a terrific name, though - and it really suits that particular cat.

I also have to admit to editing the house they moved into to make it more cat-friendly.

 

anything