Hi! I have good news! I have actually laid out all the pics to the heir poll, and there will be this chapter and one other, and then I'll post the heir poll and tally my points at the end of next chapter. So I kind of feel like I'm making some progress. :)
Anyway, that means nothing if I don't write the rest of this chapter, so let's get to it...
Quartz is giving A Rock a wellness treat because he fell ill. A Rock is elderly (again) but staying that way this time. Declan is also an elder, but thanks to having six pregnancies, Quartz is far behind him, though her time will come for a birthday soon-ish. Still in the house are Topaz, Zoisite (who I keep trying to call Qusongite for unfathomable reasons...they don't look alike or have any major quirks in common, my brain is just broken), and Zircon. They're all kiddos but we need them to be YAs, and in this case, time truly does heal this problem.
This problem, though? I dunno, man. Teleporting poop may be a side effect of the wellness treats.
Zoi
NOT Qusong starts us off by visiting with a friend she made while doing Social Butterfly, who keeps following her home from school like a lost puppy. She's just aimlessly drifting because there wasn't really enough time to complete a third aspiration unless I pushed, and I didn't feel like it.
Mostly because I was desperately coaxing the slowest skiller of the gen to finish his second aspiration. I hope you don't get Musical Genius, buddy, because instruments are really not in the cards for you.
Aw, it was Love Day and he gave his sister a tulip. She hated it. <3
Leaving the dysfunctional siblings at home, Quartz and Declan went on a date to an outdoor nightclub. After a gold medal date, they showed some sick group dance moves on the dance floor, much to Quetzal's consternation.
Quetzal: "I don't know those pastel rainbow old people, but I definitely think I need a new hangout."
And soon enough it was time for the twins to enter the teen years. Zoi, as the older of the twins, is up first.
Oof, I'd be mad if growing up made my makeup match my jacket too. Rough.
Then Zircon, and then to a mirror!
So here's Zoi. She's really cute. She looks an awful lot like Quartz in facial features, but not as much as the Q twins do. She's definitely one of my favorites appearance-wise, but her name doesn't have any really important letters, so I don't think she's a very strategic pick. Anyway, she adds jealous (like her mom), and thankfully she, and not Zircon, wants to be a Musical Genius. That we can do before the heir poll, hopefully.
Zircon really surprised me because he grew up a lot different than I expected, but then he only has sisters, so I haven't seen Quartz and Declan's genes in a male sim before. I like his face quite a bit and his inexplicable burgundy eyes are nice, but he is a dreadfully slow skiller. He added Materialistic, which is a new trait to this family (most of the kids have gotten their traits, even aside from Dog Lover, straight from their parents) and he wants to be a Computer Whiz. I guess he's hoping to be the next tech billionaire.
And here's our three teens with their parents. Each birthday just brings us closer and closer.
Topaz is excited to welcome her siblings to the wonders of high school, and they all work on their homework together. I really love Zoi's hair with those twists. It looks great on her.
While the kiddos are working and Quartz is forever upgrading, A Rock joins Declan for a swim like he used to do with Ru all the time.
Speaking of Ru, she still swims a lot when she comes by, but uh, isn't something missing? I specifically made you a mermaid. Where is your tail?
Ru: "This is a haunted pool. Strange things happen in these mysterious waters."
Axi: "Ru isn't kidding. What the frick is that???"
Oh, lol. I got to spend some time with my family at Christmas after we all quarantined and tested negative, and when I was showing my sister the house, she dared me to put a "pool monster" in and Cthulu gnome was as close as I could get. I literally forgot it was there because I barely played all quarter, until I went to move the camera since Axi was about to jump in the pool and I saw it there again.
Axi: "Yeah, I think I'm going to reconsider taking a swim. Thanks a lot."
The teens are hard at work inside, meanwhile. Zoi is going to work on keyboard for her instrument, and I see she probably had the same piano lessons as
Simon Gregory.
Zoi: *smashes fingers through keyboard*
Yes, lovely.
I had Zircon work on programming a little, but he's so dreadfully slow and this is an aspiration he can't finish as a teen anyway, so I'm going to have to find him something else to do.
Topaz, the aspiring Master Chef, has worked her way to the top of the Fast Food career, although she's not enjoying the work terribly much.
After getting dressed in her party clothes, she threw a dinner party for some of her sisters and her father, but only Ru showed up. She got her silver medal. She also can't complete her aspiration, but I thought it'd be fun to have a dinner party...at least it would have been, if people had showed up.
Declan did get in his party clothes but apparently he thinks Topaz is running a takeout restaurant. >:(
Meanwhile, Quartz is taking a break from upgrading to work on robotics a little, though she also changed into party wear for...reasons? I have no idea. She wasn't even a guest or host.
Anyway, she successfully built a little cleaner bot and we set him loose on the house.
I've decided Zircon will top the Barista career, so he practices his mixology ahead of his first shift.
Topaz is working on her cooking, but I think she
might have missed the bowl a bit there, judging by that gigantic yellow smudge running down the counter.
And Zoi is now and forever playing the keyboard.
Declan and A Rock, old men extraordinaires, keep active together.
And Quartz is back to upgrading. Her stint with robotics was short-lived.
Which is just as well if the cleaner bot she built thinks hosing down the stairs is a good idea.
It also got lost out back in an empty part of the lot for the better part of the day, so it's not the most useful addition, but better than nothing, I suppose.
Zoi makes use of moodlet solvers to be on the keyboard whenever she isn't in school, and Declan and A Rock like listening to her play, which I think is really sweet. She's still in Scouts (did I mention that last time?), but I'll only finish it when she's done with this aspiration.
Speaking of meeting goals, Topaz has maxed cooking. I hadn't realized that sims needed to max skills for it to count for points, so I wasted a lot of time on random skills on the older kids when I could have had them focus to max skills. Oh well. Next gen will be better. Topaz, however, doesn't get the full poits for this maxed skill because Declan has already maxed cooking. Next, she's going to work on gourmet cooking since cooking skills are easy to master, and that one she will get the bonus on.
And then--BAAAAA!--I had to try out the kits. Bust the Dust intrigued me, and I knew it was broken, so I downloaded a mod that was supposed to lengthen the amount of time before it got dusty and reduce the free money gain.
Declan: "Did you match this vacuum cleaner to my pajamas?"
No, that's an accident. I actually chose that swatch because my vacuum IRL is the same color, haha.
Declan is using another of his homebody skills to prepare a special meal...
...for our very old favorite dog, A Rock.
Declan: "Sorry, buddy. I had to set it over there because, as you can see, there is simply no room between us in which a plate could be set."
A Rock: "???"
Aww, he likes it. That was so cute. I never let them complete those whims but I thought a special treat for A Rock was worth it.
Zircon gets his first barista promotion and is so gosh darn proud about it that he goes to school in his uniform.
With all three kids at high school and Declan's age also getting up there, I decide it's time for a nice date day for the founding couple, and I was just getting ready to send them out to some new lots when tragedy struck.
That special last meal could not have been more timely, because A Rock has finally passed from old age.
Needless to say, Quartz and Declan are devastated.
We buried him out back and decorated his grave with a statue and flowers. A Rock was a really good dog and beloved by absolutely everybody in the family. I sometimes thought about just giving him age-down treats indefinitely and keeping him around for the whole challenge, but I decided in the end to let him rest. We'll miss you, A Rock. Thanks for being such a good boy.
So, needless to say, the date idea was out since Quartz and Declan were now utterly depressed, But I still wanted them to spend some time together and Quartz was working from home today and needed to get out to check a community board, so they did that and then stopped by The Caboose, the bar where everything in this challenge started so long ago (back before it was replaced with a better building). It looks like we've finally spent enough time here that Evergreen Harbor has cleaned up this district, and gosh if it doesn't look really nice.
Inside, our founders chatted, got drinks, and played ping pong, but there was much sighing and crying so I finally gave up and went home.
They parted to deal with their grief in their own manners. For Declan, that meant a swim and then "playing with emotion" with one of his toys.
He also tried to befriend a dust bunny but A) it was a pale imitation of our fallen pet, and B) this takes too much time and I got impatient and let him vacuum it. Despite my mod, the floor was getting very dirty very fast (imo), and I wondered if having the dust bunny there was contributing to it.
Quartz's elder birthday came up then, and we decided to throw a huge party at a refurbished factory that now serves as a club. Quartz invited her whole family and her two friends, Dana and Miracle.
Everybody came but it turned out the factory was really poorly lit. (Please light your community lots. I don't care if it interferes with the ambience. I'm trying to document a challenge here!). I lightened these pics, but the original was so dark that I couldn't even tell that Quartz's cake was behind the useless lights here. Anyway, most of the party was nearby to cheer her on even if they didn't all make it into the shot, and she aged up into an elder. We'll take a closer look in a bit.
After the cake, the young and the young at heart played some video games together.
Elders Quartz and Declan managed to slip away for a little celebration of their own. (Don't worry! They only made out.)
All eight of the kids and the two friends plus a bunch of randos tore up the dance floor.
Quartz and Declan looked on at the life they'd built together, and it was truly a testament to their love. What a great birthday for Quartz.
After the party, Quartz got a little makeover with some shorter hair and I changed or deleted a few of her outfits so that everything was age-appropriate. She's still the fun and colorful dresser she's always been though. I love her with this haircut. She's a very beautiful elder.
And Declan thinks so too. After building an entire life together and having eight kids, the last three who are SO CLOSE to being YAs, their love has not dimmed a bit.
And that's where we'll close today. Like I said, just one more chapter and then it's time for the heir poll and generation points. Check back soon (the chapter is already laid out), and in the meantime, come let me know what you thought of the chapter at
Boolprop. Thanks for reading!
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