#sims3challenge #sims3legacy #sims3story #thesims3

The rain held off until Love Day was over.

Abby sat inside on a rainy afternoon to study her lines. This was, by far, the most challenging role she had ever attempted. She only hoped she could give a performance worth of an Anton Pierce production.

To give her brain a rest, she took a deep breath and looked out the window.

There, standing out in the rain, was Thomas Mosely.

Abby knew he wasn’t there for her, exactly. Well, he was, but not for personal reasons. Still, she felt she had to go talk to him.

She walked out into the rain without an umbrella, and they both stood in the downpour, soaking together.

“Hey,” she said. “Haven’t you quit your awful creepy job yet?”

Thomas smiled sheepishly. “It pays the bills.”

“You know,” Abby said with a sudden light in her eyes. “My brother is a really successful photographer. If your pictures are good, he might be able to help you make it as a freelancer.”

Thomas looked dubious. “Maybe. Celebrity photography pays really well. I don’t think that traditional photography can top it.”

No matter what he says about it, he actually likes being a paparazzi, Abby realized suddenly. That made this so much easier.

“I just wanted to tell you honestly,” she said. “You and me — it’s just not going to work out.”

Thomas shrugged. “You met someone. I know. I took pictures for the next issue of Celebrity Insider.”

Abby just stared at him. She’d been skeptical that it was a good idea to be social with a paparazzi, but it was so much worse than she’d thought. She wanted to say, We can still be friends, but it wasn’t true.

Fortunately, Thomas didn’t even try. “It was worth a shot, anyway. Thanks for giving me a chance. I’ll see you around.”

“Yes,” Abby said softly. “I’m sure I will.”

Andria was at it again. She had some elixir in mind, and she had Bonehilda helping her collect the ingredients.

He stumbled backward in surprise. The elixir puffed into glowing purple smoke that engulfed his body, then dissipated.

Sawyer watched the smoke fade with a skeptical look. “Well, that was dramatic. I don’t suppose you’ve ever tested this stuff, have you?”

“I’m testing it now,” Andria said. “On you.”

Sawyer scowled. “That’s what I thought. If anything strange happens to me, I hold you personally responsible.”

Edmund was made the honor roll. Dylan couldn’t have been more proud.

He turned out to share his father’s artistic streak. Edmund was very unhappy with his first experiments with paint and canvass, however. “I just can’t seem to capture the dark monster that lives in my soul,” he complained.

Winston continued to rival Victoria in the most adorable baby contest.

His first word was, “Doctor!” Sawyer really appreciated that part.

When Victoria’s usual crowds of admirers went home, sometimes she took a bit of time to herself.

She really loved her Fairy Bearykins bear.

But she really preferred to be around people. When they didn’t come to her, she came to them, asking for any little extra bit of interaction.

Sawyer didn’t appreciate it when she showed up in the tech den looking to play, especially when he had Manisha over.

Dylan was always willing to make time for her, though. She was his only daughter and thus his little princess.

Those were the bits of mundane domestic life. The rest was much weirder.

As the children grew older, they became more interested in their fae nature. Andria chided them to be cautious about their magic in public, but in private, they let loose.

Dylan pretended not to care when he walked past a life-sized faerie doll playing at the blocks table, but he wasn’t very convincing. He found the whole thing very disconcerting. He wasn’t even sure which child he was looking at.

The latch was just where his mother said it would be.

“I want to know about magic,” he told him.

The Masters were surprised. “You are fae, but different. Part of you is ghost. We have never met someone like you.”

“Then teach me,” Edmund said.

When he came home, he stayed in the treehouse until nightfall.

Sawyer, of all people, took the task of escorting Edmund to bed. He read him a passage on socket wrench maintenance from his inventor’s handbook.

It worked like a charm.

Sawyer looked about and made sure that Dylan and Andria were busy, and he headed out into the garden.

His precious experimental plant was ready to harvest.

It had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

“What shall I name you?” he asked the burbling little plant creature. “I didn’t think about that.”

She didn’t need to be fed. She had a store of minerals from the soil that would nourish her until she could photosynthesize on her own. Sawyer took her inside and laid her to rest in Victoria’s old crib.

“Sawyer,” Andria hissed from behind him. “What. Is. That.”

“She’s at least five journal articles,” Sawyer said brightly. “I fused human DNA with a splice of hearty vegetable species. This is success beyond my wildest hypothesis.”

“Is it what it looks like?” Andria demanded. “Is it a baby? Did you make a baby?”

“She’s a new species,” Sawyer said. “She may even been a new branch in the sim life ontology.”

“How could you do this?” Andria demanded, raising her voice. “How could you make a child for research results? She needs care and love. You can just use as an experiment.”

“You think I’m not going to care for her??” Sawyer demanded. “I thought you were stupid, but you really are an amazing idiot.”

“She’s my daughter. I’m her father. Manisha and I made her, and we are going to raise her like any other child.”

Andria stopped, stunned. “Do you think you can do that?” Andria asked. “Do you think you can be a father to this baby?”

“Nobody can be a better father to her than I will,” Sawyer said. “I’ll learn her needs and provide for them.”

“Does she even have a name?”

Sawyer gave her a condescending smile. “I thought of everything,” he said. “Of course she has a name. I named her Gamora.”

“Gamora?” Andria asked. “Where did that name come from?”

Sawyer scowled. “How can you have not seen the brilliant film–” Sawyer began. “Wait, I forgot I’m talking to a technophobe. Let’s just say I named her after an amazingly capable green woman.”

———-

So Sawyer did breed! At least after a fashion.

I promised you that Sawyer would get some more attention, Jo :).

For those who missed the heir poll, it was a three-way tie between Dylan, Abby, and Sawyer with a small-but-vocal minority calling for Dylan and Sawyer as dual heirs. I picked Dylan for many reasons — I thought he had the best genetics, his storyline lent itself to marriage and kids the quickest, and I’m kind of in love with him. Relatedly, I was reluctant to make Sawyer heir because his… unique… personality didn’t guarantee him a quick trip to babies, and I didn’t really want to push him to do things out of character just to continue the legacy. BUT, I promised that if Sawyer had kids, they’d be be heir candidates as well. So Gamora here will be in the heir poll.

I should also reassure everyone that Gamora is not a clone. We don’t need no steenking clones in my lovely gene pool. I rerolled her genetics using MasterController to combine Sawyer and Manisha. That’s what he was doing when he was getting her genetic sample. They’d been planning a plant/sim gene splicing experiment for quite a while.

We are VERY close to catching up on my huge backlog of gameplay. The last day I played was Edmund’s teen birthday. Gamora was a toddler for only a couple of days.

I opened this game recently to export Generation 6 for download. I’m getting ready to play it again, I think. Just in time.