ALISTAIR - Seriously?! What gives?
Blow harder.
ALISTAIR - . . . really?
Really, really.
After one or two failed attempts, we finally managed to age up! And here he is, in all his teenage hormonal glory! Alistair rolled his second trait of Geek (keepin it geeky up in this fam) and the Freelance Botanist aspiration. I'd be a little peeved at the boring choice if gardening didn't just get such a big revamp in Seasons. As it is, I'm actually excited to try it out.
ALISTAIR - *checks phone* Ohey, it's also Love Day today. How fitting.
Ain't it? *eyebrow waggle*
Chester makes sure to gift his special lady with a Love Day rose.
PRISHA - Aaah, so pretty.
CAILAN - Hey mom, can you help me wit--
PRISHA - Busy.
CAILAN - Wow, harsh.
CHESTER - Love Day Confetti!
PRISHA - Trying to enjoy my grilled cheese over here, Chester. Do you mind?
CAILAN - How quickly the love fades . . .
Alistair ordered some seeds online and got right to work. I planted 2 of each, regardless of what season. Just testing things out for now, getting a feel for the new system.
After that was done, he ran off to get some fishing in for his Outdoors scout badge. After leaving him to fish for a few hours and only getting credit for one, I then found out all I needed to do was start to fish, cancel the action, then start again in succession and finished it. XD Wow.
Once school let out for the day, Alistair invited Emilia over to test out the cake. #noshame
Well . . . the buzz cut is unfortunate, but she's still pretty imo.
Meanwhile Zevran was outside, maxing his Motor skill and completing his childhood Rambunctious Scamp aspiration. No big deal.
ZEVRAN - Killin' it.
Alistair was sure to gift Emilia with a Love Day flower. She loved it.
Cailan invited Cassidy over to do the same, but she was super sad for some reason. So before he could give the flower, some cheering up was in order. The flower was eventually given though, and happily accepted.
And lastly, Zevran wouldn't be one-upped by his brothers of course. Bianca got herself a rose as well.
PRISHA - *singing* What is loooooooove? Baby don't huuurt meee, don't huuuurt mee no mooooooore!
ALISTAIR - Mom, you don't have any points in the singing skill. And it shows.
Ouuuuch.
Alistair soon rolled the whim to own some bees, so I indulged. Here he is bonding with the little buggers. I haven't exactly worked out all the ins and outs of these guys, a lot of the time I just guess/do things by accident.
Alistair then invited Emilia back over and made his mooooove. And successfully earned himself his first kiss and an official girlfriend. *touchdown celebration noises*
Off to scouts! With an umbrella, because it's raining. Again. I never thought I'd say this--cause I love rain and thunderstorms in real life and I usually love them in Sims--but it's literally been raining non-stop in this save all week long. Getting a LITTLE old . . .
ZEVRAN - You know what, Bunny? I wish I had a pet. The Watcher doesn't want any cats or dogs unless the current heir has a trait or aspiration that requires it, but I need a little furry buddy in my life. Know what I mean?
. . . *sigh* Fiiiiiiine. *opens up Origin*
*buys My First Pet Stuff*
There.
Meet Sir Prickles the Hedgehog. I was on the fence with this stuff pack. I certainly don't feel as much hate as a lot of people do toward it, but it wasn't necessarily high on my list of wants either. And then I found out what these little critters can get up to at night (build space ships, go on adventures, send you items and post cards) and it convinced me. 10 bucks isn't a bad price-tag, imo.
It was love at first nose-bite. Seriously, I think Sir Prickles bites Zev almost every time he takes him out to play, but I don't think kids can contract the rodent disease, so it's ok for now. Plus, Zev still loves him, so what can you do lol.
Cailan meanwhile was down at the beach accosting random sims and browbeating them into friendship. This lady here was the final lynch-pin in his Social Butterfly aspiration completing.
Alistair made a few choice donations to several charities around town and with that he's earned every badge in Scouting. I was a little let down that I didn't get anything tangible in game to show for it (certificate, trophy, etc). But he earned some outfits in CAS and the Scouting Aptitude trait (which helps him earn all skills a little faster), so worth.
Today marks the first annual 'Day of the Giekes.' The Legacy rules have been updated with the option of holding 2 separate holidays, one celebrating the start of the Legacy and one in remembrance once your founder (and heirs) pass away. Day of the Giekes is the former, and the tradition chosen (to reflect Chester) is Play Video Games. Zevran gets in some Sims Forever action on his father's rig.
Cailan plays some Blicblock on his phone.
Alistair--who'd already played some Blicblock on his own computer, was busy harvesting honey from his bee-pals.
And then--after Collecting the Swarm--he sent them off to pollinate his garden.
ALISTAIR - Fly my minions! FLY!
I have no idea if this actually does anything of use, but it's fun to watch.
Prisha used the honey to bake the new cake on offer. And it looks good. I want some . . . .
There's not much to do with a newly planted garden, so Alistair does some reading to help skill up.
Prisha got this new easel from a promotion at work. Nifty.
It stopped raining--for like 2 sim hours--but that was long enough for Chester to finally finish building the rocket ship.
By the time Prisha got ready to head up with her grilled cheese sammich, it had already started raining again however.
PRISHA - Are you sure about this?
Not at all, but good luck!
Well, the trip was successful, at least as far as her aspiration was concerned. There was a slight snag though, in that she came back invisible. I waited several sim hours but she never did reappear. I had to resetsim to fix it.
So apparently, space grilled-cheese makes you see-through. Lesson learned.
A nice quiet afternoon in the Gieke household. Zev enjoying some stirfry while Prisha helps Alistair with his homework and Chester reads to Cailan in the background.
So family. Much wholesome.
Another day, another thunderstorm. It's the attack of the umbrellas!
A side note, I think it's kind of lame that EVERY sim becomes tense during a thunderstorm. Not everybody dislikes rain and thunder, I happen to be one who loves it, personally. It'd make sense if all toddlers were afraid, and maybe some traits caused it. But every single sim? Boo.
It was here that I noticed a lightning strike had destroyed my jungle gym.
AND MY ROCKET SHIP WTF!!!111
So, note to self, all outdoor items go in the family bin during t-storms from now on. *grumble*
I wasn't going to do any more renovations until the next gen, but this destruction motivated me to at least increase the size of the main room so I could move the chess table and treadmill indoors.
Oh look, another school project! Looks like it's Cailan's, and he roped twin Zev and Bianca into helping out.
CHESTER - Ah, children enriching their minds. It warms the heart.
PRISHA - You better pay more attention to the chess board in front of you before I beat the pants off you.
CHESTER - Don't threaten ME with a good time.
Rawr. Prisha needed some logic skill points for her next promotion, and Chester was always down for a mental exercise (and maybe some other exercising too, apparently).
It was time for Easter! Originally I had the holiday placed in the summer (because there were no other holidays there yet), but I've since moved it to spring (because duh). Unfortunately these were the only eggs they found. Not many places to look in this relatively small house and I didn't yet know you could just click on random spots outside.
They also didn't get a chance to talk to the Flower Bunny. She never showed up on our lot even though Prisha randomly befriended her. Come to find out, she shows up in the neighborhood but not necessarily right at your house so you have to go out and look for her. Oh well, lessons for next time!
Instead Chester and the boys spend Easter morning catching up on homework and bowls of cereal.
I also made 'give flowers' part of the original version. I removed it from the newer one though, because that's part of Love Day and we don't need no copyin up in here! Plus it's a pain when they reject it (for no reason) and make the other sim get sad.
Lookin at you Prisha. You meanie, you.
Oh look, it's raining again. *surprise face* But more importantly, you might notice the tiny box there on the left-ish side of the foreground. Turns out lightning strikes don't just destroy objects, they leave behind goodies. I found a couple different elements, some metals and a crystal or two around the lot.
Didn't come close to paying for the destroyed rocket and jungle gym, but still. Cool beanz.
I feel like we've done this before . . . .
Zevran's project, assisted by Cailan and Cassidy.
After the sixth or seventh straight day of thunderstorms I (and Chester) had had enough. We bought the weather control machine, and while everyone else was at work/school, he gave it a few necessary upgrades . . . .
The moment of truth! Fire that bad boy up, Chester!
Success!!
For like . . . 3 sim hours. And then it went right back to raining again, lol.
. . . you know what, I'm not even gonna say it. You all know what this is. Though I'm amused at how it looks like Alistair is sitting back while making his little brother do his project for him. Lololol
At this point the family have collectively earned enough aspiration points to each have bought one Potion of Youth. Points!
And it's here that I'd decided I'd earned enough simoleons (and objects without the need to immediately sell them) that it was time to once again build the Collections Bunker. A basement level box room to put all the family's collectables on display.
All of the boys are pretty low on Conflict Resolution. I did some research on how best to combat that. Turns out writing in a journal can be a big help, so all three of them got one. Little Zevran was the first to try his out.
CAILAN - Hey look! It's a BRIDGE!
ZEVRAN - I can't believe Alistair made us do his project for him. And I can't believe how stupidly proud of it you are.
CAILAN - But, but . . . BRIDGE!
ZEVRAN - Lame!
It's another Amalgamation Sim! RAAWWWRRRR! Prisha and the boys all come home at the same time, and this glitch never fails to amuse me.
It's a hot summer afternoon, and both Bianca and Cassidy happen to come home from school to the house to hang out.
After a quick change into his own warm weather clothes, Zevran helpfully pushes Bianca on the swings.
While Cailan gives the monkey bars a go with Cassidy.
Alistair had a garden to take care of, and a few new plants to get started.
Bianca got off the swings and promptly puked a little. Kinda gross, very amusing. Carry on.
Cailan was quick to take her place.
Zevran had gone inside to take care of his first love, Sir Prickles. I've recently started getting the notification that he's getting old. It'll be sad when he dies, but I don't wanna make him immortal either.
ZEVRAN - But why not?! Sir Prickles is everything!
He bites you on the face. Every. Day.
ZEVRAN - That's how he says I love you!
Wow. Denial, not just a river in Egypt.
Cailan also got a little nauseous after the swings, but didn't puke. He just went inside and played with some toys for a while to unwind.
Prisha has started making some emotion paintings for the bunker. This one is . . . Confidence, I believe?
*dies laughing* And this one is Anger. Because nothing says anger like Jaws. True story.
Or maybe with that screaming woman in the corner they were channeling more 'The Shallows' vibes? Hm, food for thought.
And this magnificent piece of wall art is courtesy of Chester's most recent promotion. Just one more to go and he'll have topped the Tech Guru/Start-Up Entrepreneur career.
But for now, we'll just have to make do with MOAR BIRTHDAYS! It's time for the twins to become teens! Zevran goes first.
Soon followed by Cailan.
Well, turns out he didn't really grow into a chin, but it's not the worst face I've ever seen.
ZEVRAN - Gee, thanks.
You're welcome. He rolls Materialistic for his next trait, and one of my lesser favorite aspirations, Chief of Mischief.
Well then, I think we now know where all of Zevran's chin went to. At least he's not a complete Chester clone though, so I'm happy for that.
Cailan here rolls up Geek (I'm sensing a pattern) and another of my lesser favorite aspirations, Renaissance Sim.
Well, you boys are certainly off to a great start. Join us next time to see how the twins settle into the next stage of their lives. More holidays? More birthdays? Most definitely. Until then, happy simming!
