It's going to be interesting for sure! 
I think so - just not in a good way.
Apparently! I mean, look at the smile on his face 
Nice to know you care, gramps...
In his defence, his life did mostly consist of telling them off.
If there’s a plus side to Jackson’s new Unstable trait, it’s that it gives him something to do besides beat up Lincoln.
Otherwise, I’ve gone back to the old standby of keeping them apart. Lincoln has been placed in charge of repairs and making all the new plumbing self-cleaning. He’s decided he wants to be an astronaut, although I’m not sure any self-respecting army would be desperate enough to want him in it.
Maybe it was the instability, but teenage Jackson vacillated constantly between good and evil. He always had at least two LTW suggestions among his wishes, but the most common were Emperor of Evil and International Super Spy. Whichever career he chooses athleticism and logic will help, so he’s been working on his athletic skill. (He can’t actually do International Super Spy as it was Annie’s LTW, but Perfect Mind, Perfect Body is free if he really does decide he wants to be an evil cop.)
Speaking of LTWs, all hail President Montpelier. First to congratulate her was a paparazzo in a very fetching outfit.
None of the humans in the family noticed so she had to be content with telling Sacramento. Let’s hope he doesn’t look too closely at some of the patterns on that uniform.
It’s birthday time again – and for the first time in his life Pierre got to have a birthday all to himself. Sadly, I am a horrible person and forgot to buy him a cake. Two out of three of his adoring family took the opportunity to laugh at his impending elderhood – although Monts would do well to remember that she’s not much younger.
(I’m not going to comment on Jackson and that chair except to say ouch.)
And the next day it was birthday time again.
Here’s the young adult Jackson. His new trait is frugal, to add to evil, loves the heat, bot fan and unstable. You really don’t want to get between this man and his energy-saving light bulbs. Ultimately he decided to leave law enforcement to the Blair Wainwrights of the world: he’s going to become the Dark Lord, preferably with an army of plumbot minions.
The real surprise is Lincoln. In addition to mean spirited, he’s become good. He’s the second Townsend to have that weird combination – Miraj also had it, and it was a pain in the neck. Miraj used to use it to lure his kids into thinking they were having a nice conversation, and then turn around and berate their ignorance. Knowing Lincoln, he’ll do something similar.
As has been pointed out, no woman in her right mind was going to move in with one of these two willingly. Which left a really obvious loophole. Jackson’s immediate thought was extortion – although kidnapping ought to work just as well.
Lincoln doesn’t have much in the way of scruples, but he wasn’t quite desperate enough to consider kidnapping just yet. Instead, he remembered a story his Uncle Pierre had once told him about a secret passageway hidden away beneath their dungeons. He’d never been desperate enough to go there before, but with the family's future at stake, he decided to have a look for it.
He found himself in a room full of what looked a lot like Boxwood, but felt much scarier.
Fortunately a conveniently placed floor switch produced fire, which wilted the shrubs sufficiently that he was able to escape into the next room.
He emerged into a room covered in keys. For a short while he wondered whether he was going to need to fly, but eventually noticed that one of the chests had silver keys on it, which matched the key panel in the room.
Lincoln had always hated chess – it was Jackson who was the criminal mastermind – but it turned out that this chess set required at least as much brawn as brains.
Much to his disgust, the next room contained riddles – he’d always been rubbish at those.
Still, with the threat of fire to motivate him, he eventually figured out which liquid would allow him to cross through the wall into the final room.
A quick conversation with a magic mirror later, and he found himself facing the answer to all his problems: the philosopher’s stone. What better way to bind some poor unsuspecting person to the household?
He still needed an urn, but kleptomaniac Topeka took care of that a long time ago. Welcome to the family, Lolita Goth. And, um, sorry about the housemates.
And that’s me outed as a massive Harry Potter nerd
. Apologies to anybody who hasn’t read the first Harry Potter book and didn’t follow any of that – next chapter is back to your regularly scheduled simming.
