#sims3challenge #sims3legacy #sims3story #thesims3

Good news from Caitlin! I’m an aunt again.

He can be right in front if you, and you don’t even see him.

Then WHOOSH! He appears and scares you.

Just one of the exciting things about living with a creature of the night.

A long time ago, I looked at renovating the basement. We didn’t have money to do much, but I did put a chess set and a light  down there. Franklin found it! He’s become passionate about logic.

I was so excited to see him use the chess set that I completed the renovation! We have a little bit more money now, since I finished a few more cases.

William shared his ancient wisdom with Imogen. She was much more receptive than Helen was.

Imogen gets along with anyone, even William. She’s the only one of our kids who actually gets along with there dad. He’s a hard man to love.

Helen washed the bathtub! I’m so proud of her.

AriWong called and asked if he could bring his kids came over for a playdate. It sounded like a good idea to me.

Wong and I got along great.

Maybe a little too well.

After we introduced ourselves, he said “OK! You have the kids! I’ll be back to pick them up!” Then he ran off. I guess he was really excited about the free child care.

I entertained Jennika Wong with my apple conjuring.

She didn’t look terribly impressed, but she said she liked me. I guess she just has bitchy resting face.

Then I said goodbye and headed to the spa for a ms. My pregnancy wasn’t showing much yet, but my back was killing me.

I had a tasty snack of conjured apple before going inside.

Back home, the Wong kids were more interested in talking to each other than playing with my kids.

That seemed to suit my kids just fine.

Except Gideon, who was terrified of the dominoes table for some reason.

Then Jennika played alone with our toys. Her brother Demitrius went upstairs to play video games with William.

But instead of leaving, he let Gideon persuade him to sit down for a game of dominoes. I guess Gideon got over his domino phobia.

After Gideon lost at dominoes, he headed upstairs.

And came right back down. “I’m not sure what happened,” he said.

“I have to use the bathroom bad,” Helen commented. So she headed upstairs.

And came right back down.

This was starting to get ominous.

Ari didn’t seem to mind being stuck in the basement. He picked up a guitar and started grooving.

“I have to pee,” Imogen said. “Let me try this.”

Nope.

At which point, by the magic of the simgods, the staircase underwent a striking transformation.

It didn’t save Helen from am embarrassing accident, however.

Franklin made it, though.

Then everyone gathered in the kitchen to celebrate.

It was the kittens birthday! First Micky.

Then Minnie.

Jennika wasn’t terribly impressed, though.

Imogen still needed to pee, so she headed to her bedroom.

Nova suggested she get something to eat.

Of course! Imogen found the cats inspiring.

So she ran outside.

It was raining, so she stopped to catch raindrops on her tongue.

At which point, nature took its course. But she was outside and wearing a skirt, so she could pretend nothing happened. Maybe that was the point?

Back down in the basement, the unthinkable happened.

Ari Wong’s time was up.

“No!” Jennika cried. “You can’t do this!”

“Wow,” Franklin said. “Nobody’s died in our basement before. That’s uncool.”

“Boring,” Imogen observed.

“I sense something terrible has happened,” Demitrius said suddenly.

“Just don’t get in the way of my soaps,” William said.

Ari begged for enough time to take his kids back home.

But it was not to be.

Grim was unimpressed by the whole basement rec room.

I arrived home, feeling refreshed, but a lot more pregnant. I had the strange sense that something terrible had happened. Maybe it was the huge puddle of pee on the floor that clued me off.

“Don’t go down there,” Franklin told me. “It’s not pretty.”

I started to clean up. That’s when I saw Grim.

“Out of my way,” Grim said in his otherworldly voice.

“Did you take one of my family?” I demanded.

“Not this time.”

“Then you can wait till I clean up this pee.”

When I was done, I stepped aside.

Grim wandered out into the darkness.

By the time I was able to trudge upstairs, I was ready to learn to cook Ambrosia. That way, I could bring William back to life so I could kill him myself.

“YOU!” I shouted when I saw him. “You did this to me!”

Apparently, I got through to him, undead and all. “Whuh?” he said.

“I’m through with you!” I said. “I’m done with the messes you make. I’m done with your mean jokes. And most of all, I’m done with your… your…

“your impossible fertility!”

“Babe, you can’t be serious!” William pleaded. “I know you’re tired, and this baby is a big surprise. Just rest. Everything will feel better in the morning.”

“I’ll rest when you get out of this house,” I said. “We’re through.”

“Baby, please!” William said.

“Baby is exactly the wrong thing to say at this moment,” I told him.

William was a broken man. He trudged down the stairs and stood sobbing at the bottom.

Then he tried to move out.

But he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He stood staring at the door for most of the night.

———-

Self-Peeing: 11 + 2 = 13

I was wondering when we’d get a fail. We got two. One of them was because of the glitched staircase, but Imogen definitely earned hers. In fact, the game gave her an extra 15 minutes to get to toilet twice.

That was annoying. I’m pretty sure those stairs worked when I added the basement. There are a bunch of glitches associated with stacking staircases, but those should have worked. There are some forum posts that indicate that sacked staircases completely broke with Island Paradise.

So, I suppose we need a few words of explanation for Erin and William’s little spat. Erin had a midlife crisis. She had it before I stopped playing months ago to focus on the Samples, so I’d completely forgotten until, out of the blue, she rolled a wish to divorce William. I always ignore the random divorce wishes between happily married couples, but this is an ISBI, so….

#sims3challenge #sims3legacy #sims3story #thesims3

The morning began with Gideon raging against the dishwasher he broke because it was still broken.

Meanwhile, William decided to share the wisdom from his long undead life with Helen.

Helen wasn’t terribly impressed. Kids just don’t appreciate the mature perspective.

Imogen had an emergency. Could she make it to the bathroom in time??

Whew! Just barely.

The kittens were adorable. (Micky)

As usual. (Minnie)

At least Mikhail wasn’t disgusted by the bathtub. I certainly was.

The bookshelf.

I don’t get it.

“Someone should do something about this messy house!” Helen told Imogen. “You ought to clean it up.”

“OK!” Imogen said. Helen went back to playing.

Why doesn’t anyone clean up when *I* ask them to? Maybe Helen could teach me the trick.

William finished another painting. Quite impressionistic. I think it’s a forest on a hill. Or a pinecone stuck in the sand. Or Godzilla climbing out of the sea.

Where was I during this heartwarming family Sunday?

I was out in the snow, staking out the graveyard.

Then his partner in crime.

They whispered something to each other. I strained to hear, but my powers of disguise don’t make my hearing supernatural.

Then suspect 1 left the scene, while suspect 2 started building a snow fort. What does it all mean??

Let’s cut to the chase: What it meant was that two weirdos were making fake ectoplasm out of corn starch and pretending to be ghosts.

The thing that ticks me off: the science department couldn’t tell the difference between corn starch and real ectoplasm? Where did they get their degrees from? A cooking school?

Well, that’s why they pay me the big bucks.

Back at home, Franklin’s prom date, Linn, rang the doorbell.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think she should have put on some clothes. In the snow, for heaven’s sake.

“Do you think I should dress up a little more?” Gideon wondered.

Gideon and Linn held the limo for him.

He just barely made it before they gave up on him.

It’s less clear why he felt he needed to sneak into the school.

When I got home, William was out doing some “serious art.”

So I was the one who had to stay up and read Franklin the riot act for sneaking out.

“But Mom!” he protested, “I got to kiss a girl!”

“You did?” I exclaimed. “Well that makes everything different!”

I sent Franklin and Gideon to bed. I was starting to feel just how exhausting the day had been.

“There’s a huge pile of trash in the middle of the floor,” I said to Bungle. “Why is that?”

“I don’t know!” Bungle said. “Why does anything happen around here? Go to bed. There’s time to clean tomorrow.”

WAIT! I ALMOST FORGOT I WAS PREGNANT!

———-

The only way to have a good prom is to go with a date. Otherwise, you just get humiliated by your crush and get into fights. If Franklin isn’t the heir, I’ll see if I can get Linn to move out with him.

So I wanted to do a PSA about the NRaas mod suite here. I am a huge fan of of NRaas. I thought it would be dead when Twallan decided to leave, but Chain_Reaction and Icarus_Allsorts have taken up the torch and carrying it with style.

BUT, I found a couple of bugs in NRaas GoHere that have a huge effect on my gameplay. As far as I can tell, GoHere is midway in a big enhancement that got bogged down. It could be quite a while before it sees a new release. GoHere is such an innocuous-seeming mod that I never thought it could be the cause of my problems.

Erin spent a good two days repeating her graveyard stakeout, which wouldn’t complete despite inactive sims arriving on the lot and sharing a secret with each other in front of her. Over and over again. Then they’d hang around on the lot, Erin would do a NEW stakeout, and two new inactive sims would be summoned. The lot would be full of inactives, and Erin still couldn’t advance to the next step of her case. I finally did a full mod-exclusion test and discovered that GoHere was the culprit.

I removed it, and then suddenly Late Night inactive parties worked too. Those haven’t worked for me in what feels like years. My actives would get invited to parties, accept the invitation, and then the Attend Party action would do nothing. Usually there was nobody even home at the home lot of the sim throwing the party. Seasons inactive parties worked fine; it was just the Late Night celebrity-style stuff that broke.

GoHere’s primary feature is allowing the “Go Here” command to stack. Otherwise, if you tell a sim to do something after you’ve told them to go somewhere, the movement action would disappear. This was causing me a lot of annoyance at some point, and now I can’t remember why. I thought GoHere was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’ve been playing with it for years, and I’ve long since forgotten what was so awesome about being able to queue Go Here commands. I’m sure that I’ll remember now that I’m playing without it.

[Later: Oh, now I remember one reason. It’s a big deal when you’re doing stuff like playing music or other actions that sims do wherever they happen to be standing. If you want your musician sim to stand in a specific spot to play the guitar (maybe not in the doorway?) it’s annoying without GoHere because you have to give the sim the Go Here command, then watch them while they go there, and then given them the command to play guitar the moment that they arrive at the place you want.]

TL;DR: NRaas GoHere has some bugs that break some Ambitions job opportunities and Late Night parties thrown by inactives. It might be a while before it gets fixed. It might be worth taking that mod out if you use it.

#sims3challenge #sims3legacy #sims3story #thesims3

Eventually I managed to show everyone where the cake was.

We all ate ours outside in the snow because all the seats inside were taken.

Then I headed upstairs. You had to go to the second floor to get away from the stink of the kitchen. I really ought to do something about that.

Franklin decided he wanted to try his dad’s big vampire bed.

William wasn’t happy about that at all.

“I can’t get to bed!” he complained. “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

I filled out my stakeout report with Bungle looking over my shoulder as usual.

Then I headed to bed. As soon as I started to lie down, though, I felt terrible.

I jumped to my feet it felt like I was going to–

I barely made it to the bathroom in time.

I came back to bed to find William back. “I think I’m coming down with something,” I told him.

“Whatever,” William said. “Franklin’s still in my bed! Where am I supposed to sleep?”

“You’re a big boy,” I said. “You figured it out.”

So he slunk downstairs and crawled into Franklin’s bed.

Nova and Mikhail have been very cuddly as of late. They’re so cute when they play together.

Micky the kitten went bounding out into the snow.

Franklin went to bed early, and he got up earlier than everyone else. He was a good boy and did his homework.

Then he broke the toilet.

Gideon and Imogen talked about their future career plans over a breakfast of leftover birthday cake.

“Do you know how much you can make for an ice sculpture?” Gideon said. “I could be making a fortune this time of year.”

Then he actually cleaned up the dishes. And broke the dishwasher.

Bungle was waiting for me when I woke up. I’m pretty sure he just stands there and watches me while I sleep.

“Today is Saturday!” he crowed. “What are you going to for fun?”

“I have to work,” I said. “I always have to work.”

The kids had some fun. Gideon spent the afternoon in the hot tub.

Imogen played with snow-covered kittens.

Then I headed to the hospital to check out my gross goo sample from the graveyard.

First, I went to see my brother Dr. Branden to get myself checked out. I was still feeling queasy, and I really hoped that good didn’t give me some strange disease. He took some blood samples to test.

It turned out I was pregnant!

Wait, what! Another baby? Dang it, William!

———-

I had totally forgotten how much fun it was to play these guys! I just step back, and the hilarity spins itself. I whirled through 4 or 5 posts worth of stuff this week while I should have been doing more responsible things. I’m going to see if I can play them until THEIR heir poll before I return to the Samples.

Erin and William both wished for another kid. I pondered it, but I was not pleased with the genetic diversity of the kids I had, so I let them go for it. This gives us an afterthought kid like we had last generation that is only going to be a child by poll-time. Last time, she was by far the best genetic combination. We’ll see what we get this time.

I don’t usually do outtakes because anything goes with the Wonderlands, but I couldn’t figure out a way to use these pictures. Here, some random vampire outside can’t go where she wants to go because the potty chair in the apartment is in the way.

Look at that face! One of her parents must have been an alien!

#sims3challenge #sims3legacy #sims3story #thesims3

I got a call from Caitlin. She and her estranged husband Peanut seem to have dealt with their marital problems in a way I didn’t expect.

I really don’t get my sister.w

Franklin hasn’t stopped critiquing all the art in the house.

He wanders around at all hours and lets us know what parts of my decorating he doesn’t like. His opinion has been noted and duly forgotten. He can change the art when he’s ready to pay for it.

At least he takes responsibility for the younger kids.

I don’t mind having fewer kids in the house. It gives me a chance to focus on the important things in life. Why else to I keep this guy around, after all?

“Hee!” Bungle said. “You’re being naughty again!”

“I’m going to pull the stuffing out of you if you’re not out of this room in five minutes,” I hissed at Bungle.

“Is that a new kind of come on?” William asked. “If it is, I’m into it.”

William is good for one other thing — his art is getting better. I really liked this one.

We even gave it a name.

And hung it on the wall.

If Franklin doesn’t like it, he can stick it in his ear.

Here’s Minnie!

And Micky!

He started out having normal fun like a normal kid.

But of course, he got distracted by the art.

Which he didn’t like. I’m sure you’re surprised.

He lost track of time AND his friends. The next thing we knew, the cops were bringing him home.

William told me about the whole thing later. I had my head stuck in a trash can at the time.

What? It was a job! Being a detective isn’t exactly glamorous.

When Franklin got out of the cop car, Helen made sure he knew that he was really going to get it.

And he did. William ripped him a new one.

I think he likes the discipline part of fatherhood entirely too much.

The next day was my birthday. I took a break from my cases to have a little “me” time. Well, I guess it was, “me and the friend inside my head time.”

Bungle and I had fun.

Then it was time to get older!

Woo!

I aged up with style

If I do say so myself. Hardly a wrinkle!

After which it was Bungle’s turn.

When we were done celebrating my birthday, William caught my eye. “Ar you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked huskily.

We headed out to the hot tub,

where I pulled him under the water.

Hooray for birthdays.

My next case took me to the graveyard. Here in Aurora Falls, the cemetery is suspiciously lacking in creepiness.

So of course, there had to be a really creepy mystery going on.

I checked out the mausoleum.

Which turned out to be incredibly gross.

Meanwhile, William waited for Franklin to come home from school in order to give him a hard time.

I guess he feels he had to toughen up his sissy of an art student.

Imogen did her homework like a good Party Animal.

I got home and it was party time! We didn’t invite anyone, but we did get Gideon a cake. I totally didn’t forget his birthday, and don’t let anyone tell you I did.

Gideon became a teen with his own unique sense of style.

Gideon grabbed his slice of cake and ate out in the snowy back yard. That worked well for all of us because he smelled worse than the dirty dishes on the dining table.

The rest of us stood around the cake, complaining about how hungry we were and wondering what to do.

Just a typical family gathering, really.

———-

Hi there! It’s been a while, but I’m back to playing the Wonderlands!

So…. is Gideon a face clone or not? That is the question. His whole face seems to be inherited from Erin except for his jawline, which is William’s. I think. Maybe the whole head shape? He doesn’t have William’s cheekbones, which would be more interesting.

I guess we can give him another look when he ages to adulthood.

#sims3challenge #sims3legacy #sims3story #thesims3

That thing with my sister’s husband is still going on.

At least Caitlin seems to be pushing back a little bit.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t be happier with the state of my marriage. Which means that William still looks amazing dressed in as little as possible.

He challenged me to a basketball dunking competition. I think I was blinded by his pectoral muscles when I said yes.

And it went about how you’d expect.

William had the gall to laugh at me.

He’d better make this up to me later, I tell you.

Another client contacted me about a case, so I headed off to work.

That’s right, I got paid to find a ring that wasn’t lost. I love my job.

At home, everyone was really embarrassingly productive. William started a new painting.

Franklin and Gideon did their homework.

OK, three out of four kids were responsible.

Prom is coming up. 

I was worried about Franklin. He has only been to one day of high school. I thought prom might be a little much for him so early.

But it turns out that his reputation precedes him.

I came home from a hard day’s work to rest my aching feet over dinner. 

Minnie welcomed me. At least, I think it was Minnie. I’m glad the cats are that I’m around.

Franklin was caught up in some sort of rhapsodic moment with the pop art over the stove. I had to move him out of the way.

“Dad? He left. I think he said something about a hot party.”

William came home later with tales of his exploits.

Apparently the party was a dud. The hostess held it outside in the snowstorm.

Then William spent the evening fending off her inappropriate advances.

“I can’t believe you would come on to a married man while holding a baby,” William told her in disgust.

“Oh, is that the problem?” the lady said. “I can fix that.”

“You just buried your baby in the snow,” William pointed out.

“Sure,” she said. “Now I’m not coming on to you while holding a baby.”

“Wow,” William said. “You must be overcome by my personal magnetism. Maybe we could work something out.”

“Wait, what? One minute ago you’re all over me, and now all of a sudden you gained some scruples?”

“I changed my mind,” she said. “Kindly go away.”

The baby was really offended by the whole thing.

But he couldn’t stand the baby screaming about being cold, so he went home.

———-

Still no fails!

I’m actually getting kind of frustrated that my sims are not failing. I have removed Relativity from the game to see if the little bit of boost from that was increasing efficiency too much. No go. They’re being incredibly efficient with their lives. Actually, my game has been really snappy recently. I’ve done some optimizing, like putting toilets and baths, showers in different rooms, which cuts down on sims locked in shoo actions with each other while trying to pee.

Without all the fails, though, sim life continues to throw me gems like William’s party. And I suspect my score is still negative. It will take a long time to overcome all the fails from Allison’s generation.

I gave William the awesome guitar from Drifter’s Desire and wasted his one free action on learning it, but he never played it autonomously. I saw other players’ idiots playing guitar all the time. So I replaced that guitar with the base game one, and now he plays it.

#sims3challenge #sims3legacy #sims3story #thesims3

I really just don’t get my sister.

She could at least get her husband to quit harassing me.

Here’s a picture of our sweet kitten Minnie. Not the best picture, but there will be more later.

I hated to break it to him that he wouldn’t even be handing in that homework because he was about to go to high school. He would have done better if he’d done his homework earlier.

He always seemed to be working at it, but he only managed a C+

Gideon didn’t even bother to pretend he cared about school. He went out to play in the sandbox. In the snow.

Helen showed some initiative and went to work on a report on the grocery store for school.

Which was good because she was failing.

Our next-door neighbor was having a party that involved a lot of people standing around in the snow and staring at the walls.

I shooed them away. It was time to party Wonderland style!

William got one last cuddle from his only remaining toddler.

Once she became a child, he’d spend a lot more time yelling at her. At least, that was how it went with the rest of his kids.

The party got into full swing, including a big fight between my sisters.

We were afraid they were going to slap each other. Franklin cleverly created a distraction by blowing out his candles.

Branden wasn’t too impressed by the festivities.

His fiancée, Shaun Ivy, was even worse. She pulled a book off the bookshelf and started reading in the middle of Franklin’s big moment.

Wow! I’m impressed, if I do say so myself!

Then we all settled in to have cake. Including the party crashers.

William and my niece Rosie got along pretty well.

Branden just wandered around looking disgusted.

What? Sure, the chairs are cat-scratched and the floor is covered with murky water from a leaking dishwasher, but this is family! Show a little appreciation.

He got out as fast as he could.

Deanne was even less complimentary. Maybe it was the fight with Caitlin.

Gideon and I took our cake outside where we could complain about our family in peace.

“Hey, have you seen Helen?” I asked.

“I don’t think she came home,” Gideon said.

Wow. She must be working hard on her report for school.

She missed her brother and sister’s birthday parties. I hope she writes a great report.

Deanne might have complained about the party, but she stuck around to put Gideon to bed.

In his own bed even.

Franklin stayed up to critique William’s sketches.

He wasn’t too impressed.

William didn’t have to listen to the criticism, though. He was outside building a snowman.

He’s the handyman I hired to fix the infernal dishwasher.

I’ll just settle in here to fix the broken sink. Then I’ll go upstairs to fix the broken shower.

———-

This is my first post from new gameplay!

I think I’m in love with Franklin! How did that happen?? He was a pretty boring kid. His new trait is Excitable, making him Green Thumb, Avant Garde, Excitable, and of course Insane.

He has a lovely mix of his parents’ genetics. It looks like Imogen does too. Even on a child face, I can see the the amazing Anjali nose combined with William’s cheekbones. Gideon and Helen both look questionable, but I don’t have the amazing clone-sense that some do. I’ll have to see what they look like as teens. Gideon’s birthday is up shortly.

Aaaannnd, because some things are even too bizarre to fit into a Wonderlands post, I close with the results of trying to reroll Minnie’s genetics: