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4.26 Real Men

Jul30

More time passed with no promotion for Fabian. The harder he worked to model crime scenes in 3D, the more he might as well have been doing it in 2D. He felt himself tense up every time Malcolm Landgraab walked into the lab.

 

It just wasn’t fair.

Fabian wasn’t getting any younger. Plenty of men younger than he had retired to lives of leisure. Except Fabian didn’t know what he’d do with a life of leisure try to find more work.

The choice was quit so close to his goal or try something new.

“All right then,” he decided in one of his moments of quiet contemplation. “I’ll start acting the part of the hero.”

That’s how he found himself outside the Sample Spirit Dojo one evening after work.

 

Charles was outside, cooling off from a sparring match and looking at the stars. He looked up as Fabian approached, leaning on his glittery lama-head cane. “Fabian! What are you doing here?”

Fabian puffed up his chest. “It shouldn’t seem THAT strange that I would want to learn a thing or two about fighting,” he said. “Let’s go inside and see what you can teach me.”

 

“So this is the place,” Fabian said, looking around at the bamboo furnishings and artifacts from his stepson’s travel. “I’ve never been here before.”

Charles’s phone chirped, and he snatched it to put it on mute. “That’s right,” he said. “You haven’t.”

 

“It looks nice,” Fabian said. His voice sounded pathetic even to his own ears.

“So let me get this straight,” Charles said. “You want to learn how to fight?”

“What?” Fabian demanded. “You think I’m too old?”

Charles chuckled. “You wouldn’t be my oldest student. We get all kinds here. All right then, if you’re serious, let’s see what you can do.”

 

“What does that mean?” Fabian asked.

“This is a training dummy,” Charles said patiently. “Give it your best shot.”

Fabian took a deep breath. He’d never worked out more than Sunset Valley’s Finest required of him, and that had been when he was a beat cop half a lifetime away. He knew he was going to like an idiot. Backing down now would make him look even more like an idiot.

He dropped his cane and let it clatter on the polished floor. “Here goes!” he cried.

 

It was like opening up a cage and letting out Fabian the Animal. The dummy became Malcolm Landgraab, and he let the bastard have it!

 

Charles knew what he was doing, and Fabian found himself gently directed to strike in ways that hurt less and made the dummy make much more satisfying noises.

Finally, Fabian stopped and leaned on his knees. “I have to take a break,” he wheezed. Sweat dripped down his back and soaked into his shirt.

“That was a lot better than I expected,” Charles admitted. “You qualify for a white belt. Let me get you a gi.”

Fabian grinned. He qualified for a belt!

 

He was a one man martial arts machine, that’s what!

 

———-

I was desperate for anything to get Fabian’s job performance up, and he got an Opportunity to learn Martial Arts. Then he turned out to love it!

Finally got something out. Hopefully I can continue rolling before I drown myself in backposts.

The poll is officially closed, and I think we all know what I’m doing!

4.25 They’re Back

Jul10

A dark figure crept across the Sample lawn in broad daylight.

 

Peering in the windows and taking photographs as they went innocently about their lives.

 

“That guy looks familiar,” Ada said one day over breakfast. “Doesn’t he have a great hat?”

Veronica glanced out and saw red.

It was Kirby Hawkins, the former butler. Now he had a new career as a paparazzi, and he’d led the entire swarm of locusts down on their new hideaway.

 

“That bastard!” Veronica swore. “I am not going to let them peer at us like we’re in a zoo. Or worse yet, like we’re politicians!”

She was on the phone immediately, calling contractors. By the end of the week, the entire estate was walled off and gated.

 

Together, Veronica and Zahra designed a state-of-the-art security system that checked retinal scans and fingerprints at the door.

 

Let them get past this.

———-

Yeah, the first paparazzi just stood facing the wall the whole time he was there. The second shot would have been a whole lot more menacing he’d he’d actually been looking IN the window.

Yep, as soon as he was fired, StoryProgression made Kirby into a paparazzi. It was only a matter of time before he showed up at the house. I wanted to get a shot of his truly stylin’ everyday outfit when he was fired, but the game crashed JUST as I was taking the picture.

4.24 Spirited

Jul2

Three toddlers were a lot of work. Veronica had never been a woman to do things by half measures, and parenting was no exception. She threw herself into it with abandon.

 

In their waterfall hideaway, it was easy for her to go weeks without making the trek into town. Veronica almost missed her appointment with Shanni to get her hair done.

When she made it to the salon, she was in for a rude surprise.

 

“You!” It was Sandi Church, Shanni’s stylist trainee. “I saw you in the Daily Gossip! What’s it like to woohoo with a ghost man?” Veronica threw her hands up in front of her face just as the woman snapped a photo with her phone. “My friends won’t believe this!” she crowed.

 

“Damn you!” Veronica shouted. She made a lunge for Sandi, but the other woman was too far away, and the whole thing was pointless.

 

Veronica had taken herself away from the harassment, but the harassment was still there waiting for them. She’d fought the system in the courts and lost. Was there really nothing more to be done than hiding away in the mountains and hoping the problem would go away? Someday, her children would be in school, and Sky was just as ghostly as her father.

 

One morning, Veronica was up before the babies, and she found herself sharing the kitchen with Zahra as she went through her morning ritual before work. They hadn’t broached the subject of the newspaper articles since the disastrous court case. Veronica was reluctant to bring it up now. Still, the old scientist WAS Charles’s mother, and she cared for him in her own way.

Veronica took a deep breath and tried to bridge the silence.

 

That night at the dinner table, she had an announcement to make. “I think I’m ready to go back to work,” she said. “Zahra has referred me to an open research position at the Science Center, and I’m going to take it.”

“That’s great,” Charles said. “You haven’t seemed completely happy at home as a full-time mom. Mad Science seems like a great place for your talents.”

“Well… this is kind of a side project of theirs,” Veronica admitted. “It’s in, um, spirit research.”

Charles blinked. “You’re researching ghosts?”

 

That’s right. Veronica was going to be a field worker, collecting ghost specimens for research at the science center.

 

Her first jobs were dealing with complaints of howling noises from around the town. The white, green, and purple flickering lights she’d often caught in the night mists turned out to be more interesting than she thought.

 

And there was the VERY BIG GUN. Who wouldn’t love that?

 

The work was heart pumping. The, um, research was something she had to hope would come later. Right?

 

“I’m confused,” Charles said. “I’m part ghost. Your daughter’s part ghost. How does catching ghosts and keeping them in traps help us?”

 

“I don’t know yet,” Veronica admitted. “I won’t let any harm come to these creatures until I understand them better. But we know so little about where you come from. I don’t see how we can fight the bigotry of the town if we don’t know anything ourselves. Can you trust me on this?”

Charles took a deep breath. “You’re your own person. I’ll try.”

———

So, mapping out the pictures for six posts in advance has had limited utility. Now I’m rewriting the posts and going back to find different pictures. Argh! Sometimes I just can’t help myself.

In one of the shots at the spa, you can see Latrice Hodgins (Trixi’s child with Xander) hanging out talking with her stepdad Jess Ursine-Hodgins. Glad to see they’re getting along so well.

4.23 Voices

Jun28

Somehow, three toddlers managed to consume all the free time of five adults. Ada started out just wanting to be supportive and active in the lives of her niece and nephews, and soon she found herself working with them every moment.

 

Her easel sat untouched for weeks with a half-finished painting. Her publisher sent her a dozen emails about her missed contract deadline, and she didn’t even open them.

She found herself far more engaged in conversations about poop.

 

When she had brief moments of quiet, her muse was silent. That was the frightening part. Taking a break from being creative was all right, wasn’t it? Just so long as it was there to go back to when things calmed down.

One day, after she had helped get the triplets up from their nap, Ada looked out the window of the nursery and wondered how long it had been since she had even taken a step out of the house. She wasn’t sure.

“The voices in my head stopped talking to me,” she said with a sigh. “I need to call them and find out what made them angry.”

 

She stared down at the cell phone in her hand and saw a phone number in the contact list that she’d never been brave enough to call: Alberto Royale.

“Levar and Jabari didn’t like weird girls like me,” she said. “If I call, maybe he won’t be home forever.”

She was just stir crazy enough to try anything. She made herself dial the number.

“Hello?” came the voice on the other end of the line. It had been long enough that she wasn’t even sure if it was Alberto’s voice.

What were you supposed to say to a guy on the phone? “I was wondering if a hot male stripper likes art,” she said nervously.

“Duude?” came the reply. “Wait, you’re the girl from the Sample bachelorette party? Ada?”

“There’s a new exhibit at the art museum,” Ada said. “It has nothing to do with baby poop.”

The voice on the other end was laughing. “That’s good enough for me! When do you want to meet?”

 

That evening, Ada headed to the art museum early. She tried out leaning against all the streetlights, the doorway, and the exterior sculptures to find the most decorative place to wait.

“Hey there!” she heard across the lawn. “I almost didn’t see you!”

Ada’s face lit up. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“Why not? Isn’t this when we were supposed to meet?”

“When guys are supposed to meet me, sometimes they leave town or get married instead.”

“Dude,” Alberto said. “That’s heavy stuff.”

 

Ada looked him over. “I like your outfit,” she said. “Your hair is a lot longer than I expected.”

“They want me doing an act as a fantasy barbarian, so I grew it out,” Alberto said.

“I wasn’t sure if this was a dinner date, so I brought fruit from the garden just in case.”

Alberto took the offered fruit and turned it around in his hands. “Um, what is it?”

“A pomelo. Mom grows some weird stuff. My grandmother used to, but she’s dead now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

They stood in the light that streamed from the art museum windows and ate an impromptu picnic from the Sample garden. Alberto was delighted to see each fruit and vegetable, and he asked her all sorts of questions about how they were grown.

 

Then the last few art enthusiasts drifted out the doors, and the art museum went dark. Ada looked at her watch. “I have to get home to the babies,” she said.

Alberto looked up at the dark building and smiled. “We never got in to see the exhibit.”

“Maybe if we do this again, we can make it in the front door,” Ada suggested.

Alberto caught her hand and kissed the tips. “Absolutely. I want to see you again as soon as possible.”

Ada flushed. “I won’t look any different,” she said.

 

Ada flew home, her head filled with thoughts. She almost couldn’t make it to her desk before the words came tearing out onto whatever surface she could type them.

“The voices in my head weren’t mad at me at all!” she told Charles later in delight. “They were just bored.”

———-

Confession time: I had to recreate Alberto. He and Ada had this great meeting at the Veronica’s party, and they left with a high relationship. Then at some point the game wiped out and completely replaced the dancer sims. Argh! There isn’t a whole lot of variation in the appearance of these sims, so I loaded the one with the same hair and skintone into CAS using MasterController. changed his name and traits to match Alberto, and set their relationship back to what it was. I was pretty ticked off that the game annihilated Ada’s dream man.

I only knew three of Alberto’s traits from looking him up when Ada met him: Adventurous, Clumsy, and Flirty — a Clumsy exotic dancer! Ha! (I think Flirty is required.) I left the other two as whatever they had been before and picked a random LTW from the suggested list. Then when I saw the everyday outfit the game rolled for him, I could only be more sure he was made for Ada :).

I was able to scrounge up enough pictures for this, but they weren’t the ones I planned to use. For one thing, I got the Through the Spyglass furniture set and redid Ada’s room in it. The last picture should have been of her sitting at the Spyglass desk and chair, which are much more her style. There was also a forlorn spontaneous moment where she went and looked at her high school diploma that is also gone. I keep thinking if I went back to the right backup, I’d find them, but I just want to play the game for a while.

4.22 Glass Ceiling

Jun15

“I have had it!” Fabian announced to nobody in particular. “I’ve been busting my butt for this job my whole life, and what’s it done for me? Promotions came up again today, and was my name on the list? Of course not!”

 

“You’re a good Crime Scene Modeler,” Zahra pointed out. “The office wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

“Says this year’s Sunset Valley nominee for the Simbel Prize in Creative Genetics,” Fabian growled.

“Hey now. It’s not my fault that I’m more successful than you are.” Zahra tried to be sensitive. She really did. It just took so much work.

Fabian just looked at his wife and sighed. “My boss is my best friend,” he said. “I ought to at least know what’s going on.”

 

Fabian invited Hank Goddard over for drinks and gnubb. “I thought you’d never ask!” Hank crowed on the phone. He was there in a New York minute.

Fabian poured out his frustration to his former partner and old friend. Hank listened sympathetically.

“Thing is,” he said what Fabian’s sob story was over. “I’m not your boss anymore. Didn’t you get the memo? I’m retiring.”

 

“You’re leaving?” Fabian asked, stunned.

“Yeah. The party is on Friday. I think you even gave money to the gift pool.”

“I… Um, that was you?”

 

“Yeah, so I’d love to help. Really I would. But I think you’re going to have to take this up with your new boss.”

“Who’s that?”

“Would you believe Malcolm Landgraab?”

“You’re kidding. He’s almost young enough to be my kid!”

Hank chuckled. “Yeah, but then again, so’s my girlfriend. Have you met her? She has the most amazing… tracts of land.”

 

Time was passing Fabian by. Almost all his peers had were on their way out. And here he was, stuck within shouting distance of the pinnacle of his career. He had built his entire life around this career, and he wasn’t going to give up without one heck of a fight.

And so he found himself buzzing the bell at the Landgraab estate, hat in hand.

 

“Hey there!” Malcolm said. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you one on one since I took over Hank’s job. Nice of you to drop by! And don’t mind Darwin. He just likes to play in traffic, you know?”

Fabian looked at the grubby toddler playing in the driveway in his diaper. “Yeah,” he said. “Kids will be kids.”

 

Malcolm was an unassuming sort of fellow, but the money and the house he’d inherited from his business tycoon parents certainly weren’t. “Let me show you around,” he said as he led Fabian into the cavernous entry hall. “Don’t mind the dust. Beatriz is remodeling the place now that we’re engaged. You did hear that we’re engaged, didn’t you?”

“Sure!” Fabian said. “Congratulations!” He knew more than he would ever let on. Malcolm’s dramatic relationship with his live-in baby mama was the best gossip at the police station.

 

“So, I was wondering about how the promotions are being handed out now that Hank is gone,” Fabian asked.

Malcolm’s smile became a little forced. “Oh, that? Everything comes across my desk. I know your name is up. It’s just that you don’t really fit the image I’m trying to build for Sunset Valley’s Finest.”

Fabian was stunned. “Image? How am I bad for our image?”

Malcolm’s eyes dropped toward Fabian’s stomach, which was all the larger in the comfortable knit cardigan he wore on his days off. “You don’t inspire a lot of confidence is all. You don’t do field work. You don’t fight bad guys.”

“I’m a forensic analyst!” Fabian cried. “We don’t fight bad guys!”

“Is that my problem?” Malcolm demanded.

 

More following Malcolm around the mansion and pleading produced no better results.

“I”m sorry you feel that way,” Fabian said despondently. “I brought you a bottle of wine as an engagement gift. Please take it anyway.”

Malcolm’s eyes flashed. “It’s against the rules to bribe your superior,” he said coldly. “You know that, don’t you?”

“No offense intended!” Fabian said quickly. What WAS up with Malcolm, anyway? What had Fabian ever done to him?

“Now would you please get out of here so I can use the bathroom?”

Malcolm held the door open as Fabian said his goodbyes. “By the way,” Malcolm said offhandedly, “I’m going out for drinks with Adjo tomorrow night. I’ll give him your regards. Oh, didn’t you cheat on his sister?”

Oh.

“Yeah,” Fabian said. “Give him my love.” And he got out as fast as he could.

 

Zahra was quiet when he told her the story, which was a lot better than she could have been.

“It’s not fair!” he cried. And it wasn’t fair, right?

———-

This bug/glitch/something that has made Fabian almost unable to write reports has really kicked his career in the butt. I thought that once he got this far in his career, he wouldn’t need to deal with them anymore, but no — reports are a job criterion all the way to the end, and it’s a great big red unhappy face while everything else is great. He’s not getting any younger, and I’ve been starting to get nervous that he might not live long enough to get his LTW.

I’ve never used the “Ask for Promotion” option when talking to your boss, but Fabian is a social wizard. He’s at a charism and reward level where he starts relationships with people as friends. So no problem, right? Well, I hadn’t noticed that Hank wasn’t his boss anymore, and then Malcolm just DID NOT LIKE him, no matter what I did.

Poor Fabian. The one place where he should have been able to cash in on his social skills, and nada.

Oh, and by the way, Darwin Landgraab apparently spent his entire toddlerhood in the driveway. Fabian came by a second time to try to sweet-talk Malcolm and watched him age up while he was waiting for Malcolm to let him in. Great parenting.

Now, I KNOW I took a picture of Darwin aging up on the driveway, and I don’t have it. I just started to put together an Ada post, and I’m missing pictures from that too. I’m not missing any numbers in the Screenshot file names, but pictures I know I took are not there. Stuff from more recent sessions seems to be fine…. I guess there may be a bit more descriptive text than usual in a few upcoming posts :-p.

4.21 Triple Toddlers

May30

The Samples were still settling into their house when the triplets’ birthday arrived. “We can’t do much, but we’re going to do something,” Veronica insisted. So all the family — except Fabian, who was working overtime again — gathered outside by the lake to cheer the little ones on and see who they would become.

 

By order of birth, first came Forest.

 

 

 

 

Then Hunter.

 

 

 

And at last Sky.

 

 

 

 

Ghostly Sky stared up at her daddy, then screwed up her eyes, and *pop* became visible!

 

“Well, I’ll be darned,” Charles breathed.

“I guess you rubbed off on her,” Veronica said with a wink. “Maybe she just needed role model to show her how it’s done.”

 

They rang in the birthday with bottles all around. Pretty quickly, it was time for bed. Not the most elaborate celebration, but the triplets had a wonderful time anyway.

 

As time wore on, the children began to show their individuality. Whenever she could get away from the looming adults, Sky made a beeline for anything that would make noise: the top of the toybox, the bannister railing, even her toy xylophone. She was fascinated by all manner of sounds. And the noise she made sounded more like music than noise.

 

Hunter was quiet and sensitive, especially for a toddler. He became terribly fond of his toys and would spend hours cuddling and burbling to them.

 

Despite being nearly identical in appearance, Forest showed no real sensitivity at all. He hoarded toys and tried to keep his brother and sister from playing with them. Sometimes you could hear him cackling to his blocks with almost sinister baby gabble.

 

They all played hard and exhausted themselves. Once in a blue moon, they did it all together, and the adults could get a bit of peace.

 

———-

So here they are! Forest and Hunter got the exact same skintone, similar facial features (at least at the toddler level), and very similar hair. They’re about as close as you can get to identical twins in this game.

Forest got Zahra’s red and black hair and Susie/Zahra’s green eyes.

Hunter got Veronica’s dark eyes, and it took me forever to figure out whose hair he has. I think it’s Cyclone’s!

Sky was essentially a Veronica clone. Her skin was a tiny bit lighter, but not much, and she got Veronica’s hair and eyes as well. I changed her skin to silver because she is a ghost.

NOBODY got anything from Charles! It wasn’t fair. At least I had the right to change Sky’s skin. It’s neat to have the dark silver next to the very pale silver.

It’s hard to tell more delicate details from toddlers, of course, but everyone’s face seems to have been influenced by Veronica’s high cheekbones. Time will tell, of course. We’ll have to see how identical the boys come out by the time they’re adults!

4.20 Strategic Retreat

May15

The next few days were a blur of out-of-sync feeding schedules and catnaps in between. Everyone pitched in to help, but three infants was still a staggering amount of work.

Finally, a bit of a rhythm began to develop to life, and there were small segments of time to do something other than feed babies, cuddle babies, change babies, and sleep.

 

At which point, Veronica looked out the window to watch her parents-in-law and saw red.

 

She ran out of the house shrieking. “You crazy trespassing bastard! Get out of my house! Get off my lawn!”

The paparazzi was so taken by surprise that he dropped his camera and ran. Veronica ground the expensive equipment under her heel and glared at Fabian, Zahra, and a shocked Charles standing in the doorway.

“That’s it,” she said. “We’re moving.”

 

Nobody saw fit to protest. “It’s nice to be on the beach,” Charles said haltingly, “but this place is awfully close to downtown. It would be nice to live a bit closer to nature.”

“Close to nature we’ll have,” Veronica agreed. “Someplace nice, secluded, and private. Let’s go hunting.”

While Veronica and Charles looked for a new place to live, Fabian and Zahra picked up the slack. They scheduled movers and packed up the car in between baby feedings.

 

They really outdid themselves. 57 Waterfall Way was an old park that had been converted into private property. It was private, secluded, and breathtakingly beautiful while still within an acceptable drive of town.

 

The house itself was rustic and cozy.

 

With a few incredibly luxurious features.

 

And best of all, it was on the shores of a private lake stocked with fish.

With some of the most beautiful fishing views to be found anywhere.

 

There was a perfect nursery with space for three cribs.

 

A downstairs bedroom that would be perfect for Fabian and Zahra just as soon as Fabian took down all the decorations and replaced them with Ada’s paintings.

 

There was a cozy little bedroom with just enough space for Ada’s bed and writing desk.

 

And an upstairs master bedroom right next to the nursery with a back deck just the right size for Veronica’s chemistry gear.

 

“Thank you for rolling with me on this, Veronica told Charles as they retired, exhausted from the move.

“I think you could make it up to me,” Charles suggested with a raised eyebrow.

And she did.

 

Meanwhile, Zahra reinterred Cyclone’s ashes in the newly-relocated family graveyard.

 

“It’s time,” she confided in his headstone. “You’ve been sitting beside my bed for most of my adult life. I miss you. I hope there’s something for us to find in the Netherworld. But I’m ready for just the living to sleep inside my house.”

Veronica took breakfast at the new breakfast bar, gazing out over the beautiful scenery that was now theirs.”

 

“All right, you bastards,” she said under her breath. “This place is my castle. If you cross me here, you’ll regret it.”

———

The story timing was good, but the truth is that I got completely fed up with the English Country Estate. It was a lovely home, but it was clearly not well playtested and was filled with things that looked pretty but didn’t work. There were navigation issues in the house. Something was rotting in the kitchen/dining area that the maid never cleaned up and I couldn’t find, so whenever anyone walked into that area, they took something like a -40 hit for being in a disgusting environment. The stairs in the landscaped yard never worked — the sims would take forever to walk way around them on the grass.

And then the final blow was that I added the garden improperly to the concrete patio. The sprinklers dumped huge amounts of water onto the patio, and the water couldn’t be cleaned up due to routing issues. I wanted to add a fence around the garden to keep the water in, but you can’t put fencing on top of water puddles, and the water puddles couldn’t be cleaned up because of routing problems ARGH!

On the contrary, THIS house is the best house I have EVER played in the game, hands down.

Waterfall Way Estate.

It had a couple of weird minor issues, like the bathroom had no wall covering and gave an “unfinished” moodlet. That was easy to fix. And it had almost no lighting. But it’s very attractively decorated and has perfect routing. And it’s just a friggin gorgeous lot. It’s such a delight to play in that it is affecting my decision to move to Elfland soon. I think I may have to try to move the lot too, even though it doesn’t fit the style of the Harry Potter world very well. And I’ll lose the water fall because that is part of the worldscape. Ah, well.

In best news of all, I have gotten to play!

4.19 Too Much of a Good Thing

May11

By the end, pregnancy wasn’t sitting so well with Veronica anymore. She got huge. She couldn’t sleep. She had to eat in tiny snacks and spent half her days in the bathroom.

 

“Please,” she moaned to Charles in a fit of weakness, “just bring back the morning sickness. That part was grand.”

Charles was beside himself trying to be supportive. He massaged her shoulders, fetched her breakfast in bed, and hovered around until she kicked him out of the house to get some space.

 

“At least try to do something comfortable for yourself,” he said almost pleadingly. “You don’t have to suck it up. Take a day at the spa or something.”

Veronica thought about it. “All right, I will.” She pulled 1000 simoleons out of their joint bank account and bought herself a day of the royal treatment.

 

And, she had to admit, it worked. She left the spa feeling like a million bucks even with indigestion and a baby stomping on her bladder.

In fact, she felt so great that when she got home and found that Fabian had broken the shower before leaving for work and just left it that way, she had to do something about it.

 

Didn’t that make a perfect moment for the baby to come?

 

Charles was at the dojo. She called him on her cell phone, lay out plastic on the seat of her car, and drove herself to the hospital. She could have waited for Charles to teleport home and drive her, but the thought didn’t occur in the haze of contractions.

Charles was there with her by the time she got to the hospital, though, and he never left her side through the long labor.

“AAAAAUGH! Well, THAT was the hardest thing I have done in my entire life!”

It’s a boy! Forest Sample was born at 6:29 AM.

“No! Not again! There can’t be another one in there!”

And another boy! Hunter Sample was born at 6:33 AM.

“YOU! YOU DID THIS TO ME! You have some kind of twisted occult ghost fertility!”

And a girl! Sky Sample was born at 6:37 AM.

Babies are all doing fine.

 

Mother is doing fine, but it may be a while before she speaks to the father.

 

When it became clear just how much bigger their bundle of joy was going to be than they expected, Charles called his mother in a panic.

 

By the time they made it home from the hospital, Zahra and Fabian had turned Lance and Layla’s old room into a fine triplet-sized nursery.

 

This really was going to take a village.

 

Charles had spent Veronica’s entire pregnancy worrying about what he would do if his child turned out to be like him. When Forest and Hunter were born with totally normal, squalling, mocha-skinned faces, he was delighted.

But the third child, Sky, realized his fears. Life has a half-ghost, an “occult” according the newspaper, had been no easy road for Charles. How could he wish that on his only daughter?

 

When he looked back on his isolated, lonely life, though, he had trouble convincing himself that it had been either isolated or lonely. Even beyond his supportive family was Jabari, Zhan Wu, and now dozens of students who looked to him as a Sim Fu master.

There was no use trying to fight Sky’s battles before he even knew what they were.

 

Veronica fed little Forest and lay him gently in his crib. For a brief moment, all three babies were sleeping.

She drew Charles into her arms. “I’m sorry for being a monster,” she said.

He relaxed against her. “Childbirth is monstrous,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to do it alone.”

 

“Our children are beautiful,” she said. “I love you with all my heart.”

“And I you,” he replied huskily.

 

“I also want you to know that I’m calling the doctor tomorrow and getting my tubes tied. If you want any more kids, you can goddamn have them yourself.”

———-

Surprise three times over! Gotta get posts out while I have the time. Plus I know all you really want to do is see the babies 🙂 🙂 :).

In case you didn’t catch it, the naming theme is nature words. What else would an eco-hippie name his kids? (Sure, Veronica named them too, but Charles is still the patron dangit.)

The multiples thing wasn’t an accident. I gave Charles Fertility Treatment, and I managed to get enough Happiness Points to give it to Veronica too by their wedding night. In Gen 2, I had given just Layla Fertility Treatment, and she didn’t get twins until her second pregnancy. I wasn’t sure what the probability of multiples was, and I didn’t want to take any chances. Once the honeymoon vacation and maternity leave were up, Veronica was going to be a full adult before she even got to start her new job as a Ghost Hunter, and she has a career LTW. I didn’t want her to take the career hit for multiple pregnancies and run the risk of not making her wish.

And I knew triplets were a possibility, but I thought, “Hey great! Three’s a charm!”

I had no idea how hard it would be to skill three toddlers before their child birthday. The whole five-adult household has been skilling in shifts and dropping almost all their personal wishes for the whole life stage, and it still will be a near thing. Charles and Veronica spent about a week with an unfulfilled wish to Woohoo sitting in their queues. Ah, that is perhaps too close to what new parenthood is really like :).

Veronica got a wish to spend 1000 simoleons at the spa, and she got a huge mood bonus for a WEEK! Don’t say the spa never did anything for you. It got her through a whole lot of the grind of starting a new job and endless endless toddler skilling.

Oh, and sorry about the crappy unfinished state of the nursery. The house had routing problems in that room, and I had to restructure the wall just a little bit. I THOUGHT I had repainted everything properly in the inside, but man was I wrong! And the roof doesn’t even connect property to the half wall! I’d’ve paused everything and gone into Build Mode to fix it, but I’d already had to reload twice at that point and just want to save and GET OUT.

I’m not entirely sure what I want to do with Sky. On one hand, I’m glad one kid turned out to be a ghost. OTOH, Charles’s aging is completely borked and I’m just aging him up using Twallan’s mods when Veronica has a birthday because they are exactly the same age. Cyclone got so borked that I had to annihilate him. It just seems like there are real game issues with playable ghosts, and I’m not sure I want to risk it again. I have been boosting Charles’s fishing and Fabian’s cooking with the thought of feeding her ambrosia before her YA birthday. She can still be a ghost child for story purposes, but unless I can find some fix for the aging trouble, I think enough ghosts is enough for one game.

(Oh, and I have to say that I thought Veronica’s game-generated maternity wear was adorable. It’s the first time I think I’ve liked any of the maternity wear.)

4.18 Occultism

May10

Pregnacy sat well on Veronica in the beginning. She got back to her chemicals as fast as she could.

 

“If I can come up with a cure for morning sickness, we’ll make millions!” she confided in Charles. He just smiled and nodded. He left that science stuff to his mom and wife.

Along the same vein, Zahra was up to her own experiments at the bistro, but they didn’t go quite as well.

 

When she’d exhausted her inspiration, Veronica headed to the porch step to pick up the paper. She waved to the mail lady and was met with a pair of squinted, suspicious eyes.

 

“What’s up her butt?” Veronica asked, scowling out the window as she joined Charles in the sitting room.

“Her?” Charles said. “I don’t really know. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to the mail man. Fabian handles the stuff that involves, you know, people.”

 

“Maybe she has PMS,” Veronica said. “At any rate, it’s not my problem. Let’s see who’s being stupid to whom in the news.”

 

A moment later she jumped to her feet and threw the paper on the floor. “What the hell is THAT?”

Charles jumped. “What is what?” Then he peered at the headline.

LOCAL WOMAN FOUND CONSORTING WITH OCCULT.

Beneath was a picture of Veronica kissing Charles… in their own hottub. In their all-together.

“Wow,” Charles said. “I knew this town didn’t like me that much, but I had no idea. If I’d realized that your name would be smeared just because you married me, I’d have–“

“Don’t you dare talk like that!” Veronica raged. “We weren’t bothering anyone! Someone is going to pay for this!”

“It’s a free country,” Charles said weakly. “They can print what they like, and obviously they think their readers want to see this. What can we do?”

 

“What can we do about what?” Zahra asked as she walked into the doorway. She was in desperate need of a shower, but the look on her dear son’s face made her forget all of that life trivia.

Veronica waved the newspaper under Zahra’s nose. “How is this legal? They come into our private space and take pictures for the newspaper? And Charles is an occult? They use that word like it’s an, an epithet!”

 

Zahra blinked at the article. “You know, dear,” she said, “things like this wouldn’t happen if you’d keep your clothes on where people can see you.”

 

“That is NOT the point and you know it!” Veronica cried. “This is harassment, and it’s racist to boot!”

“People out there are frightened of what they don’t understand,” Zahra said. “We’ve never cared what other people think in this house.”

“Oh, really? Well, damn it, I’ll show them. I’ll sue!”

Charles was aghast. “A lawsuit? Are you sure you want that kind of attention?”

“We already HAVE the attention,” Veronica snarled. “We might as well do something about it.”

 

Before Charles or Zahra could offer up any more thoughts on the matter, Veronica was on her way to the courthouse.

 

She was undaunted by the paperwork or the expensive lawyers hired by the newspaper. The case was clear. There was a law against hate speech on the books, after all, wasn’t there?

 

Hearings ran late into the night.

And in the end, she left alone, defeated, and out 600 simoleons in legal fees.

 

“The occult have never been classified under hate speech laws,” the judge said. “Occult isn’t a hate term. It’s just, well, occult.”

 

“Don’t say a word,” she warned when she dragged at last into the house. “Not one word.”

 

Soon she found a perfect place to vent her rage.

“You!” she screamed at the paparazzi lingering near her chemistry lab. “Maybe I can’t sue your pants, off, but this is our property. Get out before I kick your ass into next week.”

 

“It’s the news, don’t you get it?” the photographer retorted. “You can kick me out, but you can’t stop the news!”

 

“Then I’ll settled for kicking you out,” Veronica said, her voice now dangerously calm. “Leave.”

 

As he left, she said under her breath, “This is not over.”

———-

I’m not dead!

But hey, I hope none of you are either. Nobody seems to be posting much on the simblogs at the moment. I’m guessing it’s because this is the end of term for you students out there.

DragonWife, is the port to a new town going OK? Amhranai, is your move going all right?

I’m settled with my dear daughter at my parents’ place for another week while my husband finishes up teaching his last class. Our house is STILL not on the market, but soon. We’re promised it will be soon.

Sim celebrity points are funny. Charles picked up a random one at some pont. Then, when he proposed to Veronica in the park, *she* picked up two points. Then they each got a point for marrying another celebrity in public. So Veronica now has three points, and Charles has two. After they got married, Veronica was immediately disgraced for “Woohooing with an occult.” Oh, really?

It’s good to at least be able to get a post out. Someday I’ll even be able to play again 😛

4.17 Closure

Apr23

The golden years were certainly golden for Zahra and Fabian. They had never been so relaxed together.

 

When Zahra suddenly sat down at the chess table while Fabian was practicing and challenged him to game, the significance was not lost on Fabian. Zahra had been a ranked chess player in her youth, but somehow she’d never wanted to play with him. She only caught the occasional game with Charles.

Then one night Zahra’s eyes flickered open in the wee hours. She slipped out of bed and found her way down to he sitting room, knowing what she would find.

This moment that she had longed for so long was somehow awkward. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”

 

Cyclone looked up. His ghostly face was unreadable. Slowly he closed the book and stood. Zahra’s breath caught.

“Hello!” he said cheerfully. His hollow voice echoed through the house. “I’m Cyclone Sword. This must be your place I’m haunting.”

Zahra felt a sob well in her throat. She forced it down. She was a scientist. Whatever her youthful fantasies, she’d known for a long time what to expect.

Still, her voice quavered as she said, “Sample. You took my name when we were married and became Cyclone Sample. Can you possibly remember?”

He stared at her for a long time. “I knew you, didn’t I? You’re the reason I haunt this house.”

“Yes!” Zahra breathed. “We were married. Your son is all grown up now. You’re about to be a grandfather!”

“Whoa,” Cyclone said. “That’s a lot to dump on a fellow all at once.”

“I know that only part of you projects from the Netherworld, but is our entire life together erased? Can you remember any of it?”

“I,” Cyclone said, then stopped. “I held Charles in my arms. I taught him to read. But, wait, I held you in my arms and taught you to read. It’s so confusing!”

Zahra’s heart lept. “It was a pretty strange romance,” she admitted. “But yes, both of those things are true.”

“I’m going to be a grandfather,” Cyclone said. “Wow.”

“Why did you come back to me now?” Zahra asked. “Why when I’m an old woman?”

Cyclone chuckled. “Something tells me that this is a very funny thing to say. I was an old man when I met you. Older. I was already dead, wasn’t I?”

“Yes,” Zahra admitted. “I said our love was strange.”

She knew better than to ask, but still she heard herself say the words she had rehearsed so many times as a young woman. “I know that the Netherworld is far off, and you are only part of yourself, but… is there any chance you love me still?”

“My lady,” Cyclone said. “I am dead. I can’t describe it. We will have to talk about all this when you get here. But if our love was true then, there is something now.”

Then he stiffened. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

And he was gone, leaving Zahra alone with her thoughts.

Fabian let her sleep in the next morning so long that she was late for work. “Why didn’t you wake me?” she demanded as she rushed about getting ready.

“I woke up last night and you weren’t there,” Fabian said. “I figured you’d need the extra rest.”

Zahra pulled Fabian into her arms and hugged him fiercely. “Things are going to be complicated when we pass on,” she said. “But I wouldn’t change anything.”

“I know,” Fabian said. “It’s what I signed on for when I fell in love with you.”

“Thank you, my love,” Zahra whispered. “For everything.”

———-

At last! Cyclone is manifesting like a normal ghost! And I have complete set of legacy ghosts. Maybe that won’t be so cool a few generations down the line, but now it’s awesome!

It is midnight, and I so shouldn’t be taking the time to write this, but I’ve so missed the Samples.

Oh, yeah, and I have no particular reason to highlight this in the story right now, but Zahra and Fabian have been little bunnies since they became elders. One of them always has the wish to Woohoo or romance the other. It’s so sweet.