1.3: The Spouse Search Continues

The first thing I did the next time I checked in on Lily was to spend some (most) of the aspiration points she had collected on the Observant trait. Since this will allow her to immediately learn all three of a sim’s traits upon meeting them, I figured it would cut down on wasted time as we husband-hunted. It’s very likely that I’ll be purchasing this trait for all future Jardin heirs.

I sent her to work that morning and decided to have her ‘Socialize With Co-Workers’ in the hope that she might meet some new sims that way; I don’t usually like to have them do anything at work/school that lowers performance, but I was getting a little desperate. Unfortunately, by the time Lily returned home, she had no new sims in her relationship panel.

Fail >_<

On the bright side, she bagged another promotion despite the fact that she spent all day yakking. Woo! Lily’s now a Watercolour Dabbler, which earned her this brand new Easy-Breezy Easel:

I had Lily take the next day off work so we could get out and see if the townie situation had improved since I deleted half the neighbourhood. Our first stop was the gym.

Feel the burn!

I left Lily running on the treadmill while I zoomed out to watch the streets like a hawk for potential husband material. A couple of brand new townies strolled by, but both were women Dang it.

After Lily’s workout, I had her head over to the Windenburg library, where we met this chap:

Hugo Giles is the librarian here. I think he’s got kind of a Sigmund Freud vibe going on.

Lily’s new Observant trait got to work, showing us all three right away. We learned that Hugo here is a Jealous sim. I can’t remember what the other two traits were because I noped right out of there; I find Jealous sims to be super annoying.

I took Lily to the Island Bluffs, where I left her to her own devices for a moment while I checked for other sims, and when I came back to her I just about died. She had gone and “fertilized” a bush.

This bush.

She emerged from her pee-break looking all shifty. I laughed pretty hard.

While I got some genuine amusement out of our trip to the Bluffs, there were no other sims present, so we headed back to the mainland to Desert Bloom park.

Maybe the smell of delicious hamburgers will draw some guys over?

No such luck, sadly. My household-deleting spree seems to have worked as intended because there are new townies spawning, just none that are the right age/gender.

It was at this point that I admitted defeat. I headed into the Gallery to download some Legacy Loves. I indiscriminately saved a bunch of households into my library, picking any that looked interesting; I figured that I might as well get lots while I was there anyway if my game is going to continue to be a little llama-face and not generate appropriate townies for me.

For now, I just grabbed one household to put into the neighbourhood: the Wolfe family by MakenzieRose1026. I had Lily pop over to meet them right away.

We got there and found both members of the household out on the sidewalk, and HOLY CRAP NUGGETS THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL.

*Swoon*

First up: Andrew Wolfe. Active, Family Oriented, Romantic.

Sultry eyes, much? *fans self*

Next: Josh Wolfe. Active, Genius, Romantic.

Lord have mercy *fans self harder*

Those green eyes. Those traits. Those cheekbones. We have a winner. They’ll make such beautiful babies ❤

Now that she’s got him in her relationship panel, I send Lily home so that she can invite Josh over for a little one-on-one time.

“Hey, remember me? We met like an hour ago on the curb? Want to come hang out?”

Josh arrived and he didn’t seem put-off at all by Lily’s outdoor living situation. In fact, the first thing he did was go over and light the campfire.

Yay!

They chatted by the fire for a while, getting to know each other a bit. Lily tested the waters by asking if he was single (I obviously knew he was, since I’d just plunked him into the neighbourhood earlier that sim-day, but it seemed like a safe, subtle romantic social to start off with).

That’s the face he made when she asked. He knows he’s got it.

A few more friendly interactions, and then Lily complimented his appearance.

Lily: “If you don’t mind me saying so, you’ve got fantastic cheekbones.” Josh: “These old things? You’re too sweet.”

I then found a romance interaction that must come from Get Together, because I’d never seen it before: ‘Exchange Numbers’. Even though Lily clearly had his number because she’d already phoned him, I had to try it out. They typed the numbers into their phones and then THEY MADE KISSY-FACES AT THE PHONES. And I MISSED PICTURES BECAUSE I WASN’T EXPECTING IT. I squealed from adorable overload.

One more compliment appearance later and we officially have a pink romance bar. Huzzah!!

By this point Lily was absolutely exhausted, so she went to bed. Josh pulled out a book and sat reading by the fire.

He is seriously perfect.

---

The next day Lily went to work as usual. Just an average day. And then her phone buzzed.

It was Josh.

Asking her out on a date.

*Squeals in delight*

OF COURSE she said yes. She asked a co-worker to cover for her and slipped out of work a little early to go meet her date.

Josh: “Your eyes are a really beautiful shade of blue, you know.” Lily: *blushes*

The date started off really well.

Lily was clearly smitten. Maybe a little too smitten.

I kind of wanted to see how things would progress with minimal direction from me, and maybe this was a mistake, because Lily kept autonomously throwing out some higher-level romantic socials that Josh just wasn’t quite ready for. There were definitely a few awkward moments that had me worried.

Seriously girl, CHILL. I know you’re a smitten kitten, but try to control yourself.

Lily: “I just get lost in those big green eyes and then things spill out of my mouth that I didn’t mean to blurt out! It’s word-vomit, I tell you!”

I feel you, girl. But you can’t just tell him that you like his sweet butt on the first date.

He’s going to think you’re coming on a bit strong.

It seems that Lily’s case of word-vomit didn’t manage to scare him off, though. Thank goodness.

Because then he’d low-key flirt with her again and we’d be back on track..

Just don’t talk about his sweet butt.

The date ended with a hug…

…and a commemorative selfie.

They parted ways and Lily returned home with a flirty ‘successful date’ moodlet, so I guess we came out alright, in spite of a few missteps 🙂

---

The next day was Lily’s day off, so she decided to take a nice, steamy shower and then ask Josh on a date. She wanted to take him to the park and share her love of the outdoors with him.

Lily tossed out a few flirts, making sure to take it slower this time.

There was some hand-holding.

Josh seemed more sure of things this time, and it wasn’t long before both of them were feeling flirty and tossing out romance socials left and right.

And soon enough…

First kiss!!

Now Lily’s not the only one who’s smitten.

So sweet ❤

Lily managed to earn herself a gold medal date! After such a rousing success, she found she had the confidence to ask Josh a big question.

Lily: *nervously*”So, um, be my boyfriend? Please?”

Josh: “OMG yes!!”

Lily’s jumping for joy. No need to hold back now, babe. You do you 🙂

A perfect end to a perfect day. These two seriously warm my heart.

Awww.

 

1.2: Paintings, Promotions, and a Peculiar Problem

Lily’s first morning on her big, mostly empty lot saw her waking up very much on the right side of the bed. Her Loves Outdoors trait has her getting out of bed with a happy moodlet most days, because apparently there’s nothing like sleeping under the stars and waking up with the sun right in your face. To each their own, I suppose.

“Ahh, just breathe in that fresh air!”

Really, though. The Loves Outdoors trait is super helpful at this point in the Legacy because, y’know, we can’t afford walls. Being outside keeps Lily in a good mood.

After a breakfast of granola, Lily took a thoughtful shower to get the inspiration flowing for her first day at work. She sang in the shower, which I’ve previously noticed most Sims do, but I also heard something I hadn’t before: she did some rapping. It’s entirely possible that this is something that happens often which I’ve simply never noticed before because usually I either fast-speed them through a shower or have other Sims in the household to worry about. Regardless, it entertained me.

Lily sold her painting from the previous night, freeing up the easel so she could paint some more before work.

She’s always got this great smile on her face when she paints. It makes me happy.

Off to work!

Lily went to work inspired, and very nearly managed a promotion on her first day; she came home just a smidge away from it.

After dinner Lily did some more painting, still with that big smile on her face.

Next morning dawned bright and happy. It would prove to be a good day.

First, Lily cranked out Painting Level 3 before work that morning.

“Plum yeah I did!”

Then she came home from work having been promoted to Art Book Collator! Woo! How you feeling, Lil?

“What do you mean it’s only a $2 per hour raise!?”

Uhhh…. The art is more important than money?

“Screw that! I live in a field! I do want walls someday, you know!”

Yes, Lily, I know. I want walls for you, too. But such is the life of a Legacy founder. We’ll get there, I promise.

Lily vented her feelings with a couple more paintings, and completed the first milestone of her aspiration to cap off a successful day.

She painted this while having several baby-rattle thought bubbles:

You trying to tell me something, Lily?

Lily’s painting skill is coming along very nicely; she’s at Level 5 only a few days into her Young Adult life.

We also had our first broken household item. Lily left for work one morning, leaving her cereal bowl on the ground. So I dragged it to the sink and, well:

Oops. At least the grass is getting watered?

Lily came home that afternoon to a fairly sizable puddle after the sink had been spewing all day like a dang geyser. However, she also came home with another promotion; she’s now a Hungry Artist! With a slightly less measly raise this time! A whole $3 per hour!

New work clothes! And look at that smile! She obviously hasn’t seen the sink yet.

“What’s this about the sink?”

Uh, yeah. Sink’s busted. Sorry.

“You broke the sink while I was at work!?”

TO BE FAIR, you were the one who just left your breakfast dishes lying around. I was only trying to help by washing it up for you. So you didn’t have to come home to dirty, smelly dishes.

“No, instead I have to come home to a broken sink.”

I said I was sorry, okay? Get used to this kind of thing, it’s going to happen a lot. Can you please go fix the sink now? It’ll be a good learning experience.

“Ugh. Fine.”

“Actually, it is kind of satisfying to know I can take care of this stuff myself.”

Knew it.

“Maybe there’s something useful left over in here.”

This was the moment I realized we didn’t have a trashcan on the lot. So into Buy Mode we go! We’re actually in pretty decent shape money-wise by now, thanks in large part to Lily’s career unlocking the ability to sell her paintings to the art gallery. So I decided to upgrade things a bit for her.

New bed! Campfire! Chairs! OUR VERY FIRST WALL!!

Honestly, I only put in that lonely little wall so I’d have somewhere to hang her career rewards. The Inspired auras they give off are very helpful.

Lily and I decided that it was high time she got her very first cooked meal, so she headed over to the campfire…

“OH SWEET MOTHER OF LLAMAS!!! IT HURTS!!!”

That’s right. She went to light the campfire and LIT HER OWN ARM ON FIRE. I had a moment of pretty intense panic where I thought this Legacy was at an end before it started, but Lily managed to flail her arm out and was just fine other than an uncomfortable moodlet that lasted for a few hours.

After the arm-burning incident, Lily finally got the campfire going and roasted up a hot dog for her supper.

“I’m looking forward to some hot food!”

“I think my first cooked meal was a success.”

You nearly burned your arm off.

“SHHH!!”

Okay, okay. It was a great success. Yeesh.

Lily, I know you live outside, but that’s no excuse for leaving your dishes everywhere -_-

The next day was Lily’s last day of work for the week, so we decided to leave the home lot for some fun times.

Killer party outfit, Lil!

“Thanks. Hey, Stef?”

Yeah?

“I’ve been thinking…”

About what?

“Well, I’ve made some good progress on my career and my aspiration, right?”

You sure have! I’m proud of you, kiddo.

“So I was thinking that maybe it’s time I started working on my other dream. Y’know, marriage, some babies, start a lasting Legacy to leave behind?”

I was hoping you’d say that. First step, we have to find you a guy! Let’s go!

So Lily headed into the Discotheque Pan Europa in Windenburg to (hopefully) meet some potential husband material.

She did some dancing while scanning the room for candidates.

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. Lily met lots of people in the club, but they were all pre-made Sims. No townies! Curses! *shakes fist at sky*

“Are you okay there, Stef?”

Ugh, yeah. Fine. But according to the Legacy rules, we need to find you a nice not-currently-in-world Sim to marry.

“Uh okay. Why?”

Because them’s the rules, darlin’.

We returned home no closer to finding a man to help Lily carry on the Legacy. Maybe we’ll have better luck tomorrow.

The next morning Lily met a mailman, Travis Padilla. I forgot to record the moment And then he wandered off as soon as the introductions were finished.

So I had Lily phone him up and invite him to hang out at The Shrieking Llama. (I am so pleased with the name of that bar. I lol’d.)

Meet Travis! He’s kind of cute!

They seemed to hit it off pretty well. We learned that Travis’ first trait is Lazy, but that’s not a deal-breaker. We could work with that, no problem.

They went inside and chatted for a bit…

…and played some foosball before going their separate ways.

Overall, Lily and I were feeling pretty good about Travis. So the next day after work we decided to invite him over to the home lot after making some preparations.

And by ‘preparations’, I mean a steamy shower to get in a flirty mood.

Travis showed up on the lot, and this is where things started to go sideways.

First, he showed up feeling angry:

Just look at those clenched fists. Uh-oh.

After a few harsh words were exchanged, I thought Lily was going to salvage the evening when she successfully pulled off the ‘Try to Calm Down’ social. Sadly, it was not to be.

We proceeded to learn his second trait: Snob. Also not a necessarily a deal-breaker, but it really did seem like he was silently judging Lily’s outdoor abode the whole time he was there. Still, they seemed to be getting along well enough. So Lily tossed out a pick-up line.

Big mistake.

I missed the next moment, where he shook his head and backed away.

Travis was having none of it. He got a thought-bubble of Lily’s face with a big red line through it. Embarrassment all around. Travis left soon after that, leaving Lily and I back at square one of the husband hunt.

The next day marked the halfway point of Lily’s Young Adult life-stage. I had her take a vacation day from work so we could continue the search.

First up was the museum, which would also allow Lily to complete the task of viewing three paintings there for her aspiration. She did that part easily, but after a couple of hours there the only random townies we’d seen were elders and women, neither of which are helpful at the moment.

We proceeded to both the Blue Velvet and Desert Bloom park, which both also turned out to be a total bust. And by this point I had started to notice a pattern. Thus far in the game, I’d only had about twenty or so townies spawn. Most of them were elders, women, or children/teens. There were a few Adult men, but no YA (other than Don’t-Flirt-With-Me Travis). And it had now occurred to me that there didn’t seem to be any new ones showing up, no matter where I went. The same ones would always seem to show up on the different lots, but I hadn’t seen a new face in several Sim days. This has never happened to me before this early on in a game.

At this point I decided to give it one more try, and had Lily head over to the Solar Flare lounge, where this happened:

NEW OLD FACES.

Yup, these two I hadn’t seen before, but I can’t hang the hopes of the Jardin Legacy on some old fart who could very well die of over-exertion with one WooHoo.

Then we spotted this fellow down on the street:

Oh please please please please!

Meet Ethan Yancey! Lily chatted with him for a bit, learning that his first trait is Materialistic. Okay, we don’t have a lot of stuff at the moment, but we can work with that! They were getting along alright. And then trait number 2 popped up: Kleptomaniac.

Son-of-a-llama!!

No. This one is a deal-breaker for me. If one of the future children rolls it as a trait there’s nothing I can do about it, but I’m not intentionally bringing that into the family.

After this we visited another couple of lots, again saw no new townies, and went home.

That day went terribly. I am in despair. DESPAIR.

Eventually I managed to pull myself together and ended the session by popping into Manage Households. I have a theory as to why I don’t seem to be getting enough townies.

You see, I just very recently installed the Get Together expansion, and this is the first new game I’ve created since doing so. I hadn’t really paid much attention to it until now, but GT comes with A LOT of pre-made families. I’m wondering if maybe that’s why the game doesn’t seem to think I need  bunch of random townies. Except the game is wrong, and I do need them. This brings us back to Manage Households where….well….I did a thing.

I culled the neighbourhood.

Thinned the herd.

I manually deleted a bunch of families, both in-world and not. Bye Klepto Ethan and Elder Brigade! (I kept Mailman Travis, because despite everything their relationship meter was still in Friend territory and that’s worth something.) I’m hoping that this new, less populated world will force the game to spawn a new batch of townies for me. FINGERS CROSSED.

If not, I’m going to have to bring in some Legacy Loves Sims from the Gallery. I don’t actually have anything against this, but I’d rather not do so this early in the game if I don’t have to.

My final thought of the day is that I need to buy Lily the Observant trait from the Rewards Store, so that we don’t waste precious time getting to know a Sim only to be put off by a deal-breaker trait.

That’s all for now. Wish me luck with the townie problem! Until next time, Happy Simming!

1.1: Introducing Lily Jardin, Legacy Founder

Meet Lily Jardin!

“Just look at this huge empty lot! I wonder what I can make here…”

Creative. Loves Outdoors. Family Oriented. Lily has two big wishes in life: to become the greatest painter of her time, and to begin a family and build a lasting Legacy to carry on after she’s gone. Her traits may not say ‘ambitious’, but her dreams sure do!

First things first: gotta make sure we’re Pinstar-compliant.

The Knight went straight into the household inventory after I took the picture. Promise.

This leaves poor (literally) Lily with only $1800 to her name. Let’s see how far we can stretch that meager sum, shall we?

“I’m sure going to love sleeping outdoors! Who needs walls anyway?”

Toilet? Check. Sink? Check. Shower? Check. Cooler? Check. Bed? Double check. What more does an outdoorsy gal need? Well, hopefully nothing at the moment; the bank account is looking pretty empty! Hey, Lily, you wouldn’t happen to be using that phone for something useful like, say, finding a job, would you? You would? Excellent! Lily has taken on a job as a Palette Cleaner! Not very glamorous, sure, but everyone’s got to start somewhere.

What’s this now?

“Welcome to the neighbourhood!”

The Spencer-Kim-Lewis clan stopped by to welcome their new neighbour. Everyone hit it off just fine; looks like Lily won’t have any trouble fitting in here!

Who says the younger generation is the only one obsessed with their cell phones?

Eventually Lily’s new acquaintances had to go home, so she said her goodbyes and decided to spend the rest of the afternoon doing a little exploring (and hopefully find some stuff to sell).

“I sure hope it’s just frogs in here.”

“Hey! Fishing is pretty neat!”

Huzzah! After running around the neighbourhood for a bit, Lily has discovered a couple of frogs and caught a few fish. Good work, Lil! But the big find of the day was a rare fossilized alien skull worth $250. Cha-ching! Look at that, we’ve scraped together enough dough to buy something that, while not a necessity, is definitely something Lily wants. 

“An easel! Yes! Now I can really start following my dream. Fame and fortune, here I come!”

Yes, that lucky fossil allowed me to buy an easel almost right away. I really thought I’d have to wait until she was finished at least one day of work, but the fates smiled on us today. Lily wasted no time now that she had somewhere to paint, and paint she did!

She finished her first ever painting just as the sun went down.

“What do you think, Stef? Worthy of the Simsonian Museum?”

Uh……

“Hah! Kidding! I know I need practice. But it’s exciting, isn’t it? It really feels like things are starting up for me now.”

Now that’s something we can agree on, Lily.

A Sims 4 Legacy Challenge!

Man, I love The Sims. I remember sitting in front of an old computer when I was a kid, playing the very first Sims game – and I’ve been hooked ever since. From the original, to 2, then to 3, having fun with all sorts of little Sim lives; discovering a new way to play with The Sims Medieval; and now with The Sims 4, I’ve been Simming for years. There’s something special about this series of games that keeps me, and many others, coming back over and over again. Until recently, I’d always just free-played, doing whatever I felt like in the moment with no real goal in mind for my Sims. Then a good friend of mine introduced me to the world of Sims challenges.

The story I’ll be writing here will be the second time I’ve done Pinstar’s Legacy Challenge. The first was completed some time ago, and I loved the way it forced me to play in a way I’d never considered before. I also never anticipated just how attached I would become to my Legacy Sims; following the same family through 10 generations was an amazing gaming experience that I’m eager to have again.

I’ll be introducing my Legacy Founder in the next post; for now I’ll lay out the basics of my Succession Law, the foundation of the Legacy.

First off: the Gender Law. For this Legacy I decided that the best approach would be Equality, which means that both girls and boys can become heir and carry on the family line.

Second: the Bloodline Law. I’m going with Strict Traditional here, meaning that only children born into the family can inherit the title of heir. We’re going for an unbroken bloodline here!

Lastly: the Heir Law. I’ve chosen to use the Exemplar law. This means that a child will automatically become heir if they roll the exemplar trait that I’ve picked (the trait is Creative, which gives you a teeny sneak peek at the Founder, as this is one of their traits). If there are no exemplars or more than one in a generation, the first-born will become heir.

Aaaaaand I think that’s it for now! More to come soon! In the meantime, happy Simming!