A Lyffe-Staite Dynasty (Not HoF)

[KRae]

Thanks for the laughs. I have never had a sim go into orbit like that. It makes me want to try another life states.

[hazelnut]

I wonder whether it's something to do with playing in Barnacle Bay?  First the flying cars and now the flying Sim  .


The Power of Imagination



Josh was everything an imaginary friend ought to be: playful, friendly and completely devoted to his human.  He even seemed happy to listen to Jacinth talking about her dreams of love and marriage, which she did a lot.



Well, I suppose he was too young for commitment issues, or even for a normal male lack of interest  .

Jarvis was a completely different proposition.  He loved to spend time on his own, singing in a disconcertingly high voice.  It was far higher than Jade's, almost squeaky.  Had I accidentally selected Jarvis as a girl's name?  Then he'd blow kisses to an non-existent audience and acknowledge their applause.



Either he's a diva or he just has a vivid imagination of his own (which is an interesting idea).  He and Jade rarely played together.  Instead, her action queue often held 'Be yelled at' or 'Be argued with'.



Hot-headed and/or mean-spirited, presumably.  I didn't realise imaginary friends could look so grumpy – I didn't think their faces were built for it.



Poor Jade.  As the end of their childhood approached, she and Jarvis had become mere acquaintances, while Jacinth and Josh had had a maxed-out relationship since shortly after he'd become a proper imaginary friend.

Jacinth, like previous Lyffe-Staites, went to ballet classes after school.  Jade joined the scouts.  Slightly awkwardly, the badging ceremony and ballet recital were on the same night and I suspect Jafar was the only member of the family who watched Jade being presented with her badges.



The following day, both girls got onto the honour roll and celebrated with birthday cakes.





Jade became eco-friendly, which seems appropriate for a fairy and also fitted well with her head start in gardening from going to scouts.  Jacinth continued her run of 'ought to be useful but…' traits by becoming a workaholic.  Oh well, at least it should help with the part-time mausoleum job.

And shortly after midnight, despite a shocking lack of watcherly attention, an exhausted Dude achieved his dream of becoming a rock star.

[hazelnut]

The Power of Imagination (cont'd)

Jacinth's workaholic trait didn't do her much good as a mausoleum clerk. Jade made faster progress than she did for their first couple of shifts, although that was largely because I'd forgotten to buy her the multitasker reward .  Even with it, her hard work produced only slightly better results than Jade's 'business as usual' and they became epitaph writers on the same day.



Since I wouldn't let her learn to paint yet, Jacinth spent her free time playing the guitar.



Jade improved her gardening and fishing skills and tried to repair her relationship with Jarvis, largely unsuccessfully.  By the time the girls had made it on to the honour roll again, Jarvis had taken to sulking in doll form by her bed and their relationship bar was well into the red  .



Acquiring romantic interests was looking like something of a challenge for this generation.  There were only two other students at high school and neither of them was willing to come over and visit.  Purely by chance, Dude ran into Harry Ashcraft, the only boy in the school, while he was in the library reading gardening books.  They became friends and Dude was able to invite Harry over.  Jacinth had spent most of an evening chatting to him before I realised that no romantic options were available.  Harry had aged up to young adult.  Still, Jacinth got a best friend out of it.  A boringly human best friend but there's always a chance that he'll become an occult later.

After another day of talking to friends at school, the girls' remaining classmate, Venessa Dube, accepted an invitation to visit.  Taking no chances, Jacinth threw a Jar of Friendship at her…



…before starting on the romantic stuff.  With Jade playing gooseberry.  Not awkward at all  .

At least no-one else could see that Josh was also there.



Then Jacinth asked to 'just be friends'.  Venessa wasn't happy – and then made things worse by trying to mooch money from the girl who'd just dumped her.  It wasn't well received.



Josh, confident in his own destiny as Jacinth's true love, strutted back into the house.

While Jacinth followed him for a nice soothing chat, Jade made her move.



Moves.  She was definitely better than her sister at this sort of stuff.



And, undeterred by Jacinth taking her turn as embarrassing homework-doing bystander (bysitter?) Jade became romantic interests with Venessa.  The poor girl must have been dreadfully confused.



Since it was practically certain by now that Jacinth would be heir, I didn't make Jade break up with Venessa.  She could always do it later if necessary.  They cemented their relationship in true Simlish fashion with a pillow fight.



And so to the young adult birthdays:





Jade rounded out her collection of relatively neutral traits by becoming a light sleeper, while Jacinth became insane and thereby confirmed her status as heir.  I've always had a soft spot for crazy Sims.



While everyone was inside stuffing themselves with birthday cake and/or sorting out their new looks, Josh had a lonely birthday by the remains of the cakes.



Jarvis-the-doll was still sitting by Jade's bed, apparently unchanged.

Once she'd decided on her new hairstyle, Jacinth called Josh over and offered to make him real.



(I love Jacob in that screenshot.  He looks as though he's practising his James Bond poses.)

Oops!  I'd forgotten that the bathroom was locked.  Josh reached the door and teleported back a few feet.  Jacinth followed him and tried again.



I'm not sure what she's doing there – either playing with fairy magic or tickling him, which doesn't seem like the best thing to do to someone who's trying to drink from a large and fragile flask.

Josh began his transformation.



Dude was clearly shocked.  Was it the purple bubbles, his younger daughter's face apparently being sucked into them, or the fact that the strange green creature appearing in the middle of all the purple appeared to fancy Jasmine?

The bubbles faded away and Josh stood there in his blandly handsome human form.  With purple hair and a decidedly loud suit.



He'll fit right in, as long as Jade doesn't object to having her hairstyle stolen  .



Josh's traits turn out to be genius, vehicle enthusiast, neat, kleptomaniac and savvy sculptor.  Not friendly, surprisingly, but still a nice personality.


I couldn't resist starting up a parallel file to find out what Jarvis would have been like as a human.

It was hard work.  Jade had to apologise before he'd change out of doll form.  I don't think she's the one who needs to apologise, Jarvis  .  Then she had to throw a Potent Jar of Friendship to get their relationship high enough to give him the potion.



Jarvis also fancies Jasmine, it seems  .



The bubbles disappeared and human Jarvis emerged.  Green hair and a scowl.  That figures.  (And he is male, despite the voice.)



Like Josh, he's neat.  A hot-headed diva, as I'd guessed, with party animal and absent-minded as his remaining traits.  Not as bad as I'd expected but I still think I picked the right heir.

[hazelnut]

Art and Architecture

Jacinth graduated as Valedictorian but also Most Likely to Offend Others.  I have thought it was dangerous to let her make a speech  .



Jade was also at the ceremony, although I don't know what awards she received because she'd already moved out.  Josh, who'd never been to school, somehow graduated with merit and was voted Most Likely to Take Over the World.

Before she left the building, Jacinth registered as an architect, then hurried home to start learning to paint at last.



Jilaiya and Dude moved out of the family home and into something that looked a lot like a mausoleum, at least on the surface.  As with Jacob's kennel, it was more spacious and home-like underground.



Jacinth spent most of her time painting.  Josh, who wanted to be a Descendant of da Vinci, often joined her.



She also carried out a few renovations, in an attempt to cure her 'missing work' moodlet.  It didn't work .



A week or so after graduating, Jacinth was back at the town hall to be presented with the Key to the City.



She didn't seem very happy about it.



I suddenly realised that I'd missed an original-townie supernatural: Fiona Fleet was a fairy and was not only still alive but still looked young.  She was doing well: Dude was now an elder.  I checked back in earlier saves and found she'd been a friend of Jasmine's early on (and, in fact, had been a guest at her wedding) but never more than a friend.  It looked very much as though Jacinth had just located her occult best friend.



They chatted for a while, discussing their shared love of music and painting.  Then Jacinth returned home.  She still had plenty of requirements to complete.

A day or two later, she'd finished her painting supermax.  Time to concentrate on other skills - she'd not played her guitar since her teens and had barely begun learning bass.



At last, she reached level 10 of guitar and achieved her lifetime wish.



She was still short of a skill challenge and it was going to be quite some time before her bass skill was high enough to earn much in tips, even with the aid of the subway the family had placed rather incongruously at Ophelia's Fishing Hole.  So she turned to the collection of space rocks that Juliet and Jacob had gathered and started identifying them.



Everything was falling into place nicely.  Time to set up for the next generation.  Jacinth and Josh hadn't spent much time together since he'd taken up sculpting and she'd been concentrating on her music.  Now she went to look for him and started getting seriously romantic.



Within a few hours they were engaged.



Infuriatingly, neither of them rolled a wish to get married.  Maybe they'd been happier as best friends.  That meant I had to wait for Jacinth to achieve one of the large wishes she was already holding: either to complete ten masterpieces or to paint something worth §3500.  The ten masterpieces came first – she did eventually produce the expensive painting but not until she'd done the Fresco Fest opportunity, quite some time after she'd stopped being the active heir.



With every requirement but the best friend now in place, Jacinth used her power as Queen of the Fae to summon Fiona and threw an elixir to top up their relationship.



Jacinth and Josh were married the following morning.  Surprisingly, Crypta and Rommich, Jasmine's two alien friends, were still alive and were able to attend their second Lyffe-Staite wedding.





(The bride, who was still exploring her royal powers, changed her wings for the occasion to match the flowers.)



After the ceremony, everyone gathered around to watch the newlyweds cutting the cake.  Except, where had the groom gone?  Jacinth ended up cutting the cake solo. 



Josh, it turned out, had wandered off to gaze at the new table that had just appeared – there were too many uninvited guests for everyone to be able to sit at the existing ones.



Yes, Josh, it's a table.  And exactly the same as all the other tables.  What's so wonderful about that? 

After the party, Dude moved back into his little house by the beach to make room for his grandchildren.  And Jacinth set about providing them.



Unfortunately, the wedding night was interrupted by the groom having a birthday – and starting a midlife crisis .



There hadn't been any chimes and they were both too tired to try again… but it quickly became clear that they'd succeeded anyway.




Jacinth

Life state: fairy
Traits: heavy sleeper, artistic, computer whiz, workaholic, insane
Lifetime wish: Master of the Arts
Spouse: Josh (imaginary friend)

Toddler requirements: best friends with both parents, reached  level 3 in two skills (xylophone, painting books)
Child requirements: on honour roll, one opportunity completed (ballet recital)
Teenager requirements: on honour roll, reached  level 3 in mausoleum clerk part-time job, had a romantic interest (Venessa Dube)

Occult best friend: Fiona Fleet (fairy)
Two career rewards: Architectural Designer's Key to Barnacle Bay, Architectural Designer's Honour Trophy
Three unique opportunities: Tons of Tips, Politicians Debate, Guitar Up!
Four unique Lifetime Happiness Rewards: Extra Creative, Queen of the Fae, Inappropriate But in a Good Way, Climatron Control Unit
Five unique 5000+ point wishes: Reach Level 10 of Architectural Design Career, Master Painting Skill, Earn 5000 Simoleons in Tips (guitar), Master Guitar Skill, Paint 10 Masterpieces
Six unique skill challenges: Proficient Painter, Brushmaster, Master Painter, Money Maker (guitar), Amateur Rock Finder, Master Guitarist
Seven items for museum: paintings

[hazelnut]

Baby Dolls

Jacinth was watching TV when she went into labour.



In an astonishing development, she then went upstairs and put her new daughter in a cot  .



I thought that expression meant that the contractions were starting again, but no.  It was just exhaustion plus a very full bladder.  Jacinth went off to deal with her needs while I looked around for the second twin.  Josh was ahead of me.



Both babies were apparently human.  In the hope that this meant they were actually part-time rag dolls, they were named Jemima and Jim.



Jemima, an eccentric light sleeper, inherited her mother's hair colour.  Jim, who was brave and artistic, took after Grandpa Dude.

The whole family pitched in to help teach them their toddler skills.  Jacob, the only one who was still holding down a full-time job and so had the least time to spare, was particularly keen to get involved.



Predictably, Jilaiya avoided the babies as much as possible, dividing her time between writing (mostly to commission, these days) and watching TV.  And regularly confessing to/denying being a vampire...  And hypnotising the rest of the family...



And showing off her teeth.  That's seriously scary  .

Somehow, though, it was Grandma Jil who took Jim to his next birthday cake.  Maybe the time they'd spent watching TV together counted as building their relationship.  Either that or she'd hypnotised everyone else into agreeing.



Jim became a rebellious child, while Jemima suddenly developed a love of fishing.  She was already my favourite for heir and that confirmed it.  Jim had perfectly decent traits but fishing and inventing sounded like a good combination of skills for the next Lyffe-Staite.  Jafar quickly tutored her to an A…



…and then the twins were free to spend the rest of Jim's only day of childhood playing together.



They are both imaginary friends.  That's Jim on the left with his Mini-Me and Jemima on the right.

I left them to it.  I had other concerns: that morning, the notification had popped up that Dude was running out of time.  I kept pausing the game and looking for him but he was consistently 'at the park' rather than at home.

Except that he wasn't at any of the parks.  Finally, I happened to leave the camera paused for longer than usual over the festival grounds and noticed that one of the food sellers had wings.  Red wings.  In fact, it was Dude, almost unrecognisable with short hair and in uniform.  I sent Jil over there as soon as possible.



By the time she arrived, he was off duty and she asked him out on one last date.  They were too late to see a film but could still have a meal together at the bistro.  They just had time to eat it .



Jil came out of the bistro just in time to see her husband shaking hands with Grim and diving into his tombstone.



Then even the stone faded out of existence and she was left alone with the Reaper.

A Reaper who felt like chatting, as it turned out.  Maybe the undead hold a special fascination for him.

And then I noticed that 'drink' was an option for interacting with him.  Who could resist trying it out?  Certainly not Jil.  Or me.



The Grim Reaper has plasma.  Who knew?  Bone marrow, maybe, but blood?


Jim grew up quickly, acquiring the odd combination of social awkwardness and star quality, dyed his hair to match his namesake's and moved out.



Jemima completed her childhood tasks and began learning to fish.



(I had to go back into the game and check that house in the background: it really does appear to have curtains on the outside of the windows from a distance but looks perfectly normal when you get closer.  Odd.)



Teenaged Jemima became proper.  Despite that, she acquired a romantic interest at top speed.



Her classmate Bernadette Richey came home with her after their first day of high school and they quickly moved on from homework to flirting.



To be fair to Jemima, it was far from one-sided.  I'd happily have left them together in a different sort of game.  As it was, Jemima asked Bernadette to be 'just friends' before the evening was out – and even that went well.  No accusations, no tantrums – they simply became friends again.  Amazing .

Uniquely amongst my Life States heirs, Jemima competed both of her other teen tasks before she'd even started the cemetery job, thanks to the timing of her birthday and Leisure Day.  Then she just missed both promotions and had to work two days longer than I'd expected.  Finally, she made it to level 3, quit the job and registered as a self-employed inventor instead.



(That may be my all-time favourite cemetery worker uniform.  Going for a clinical vibe, presumably.  Pity they forgot the shoes.)

Jemima remained a teen for far longer than anyone else in the family – I was hoping that, if she did enough inventing, the Monster Maker wish would trigger.  No such luck.  On the day before her birthday, I gave up and bought her a cake.



Like Jim, grown-up Jemima dyed her hair to suit her name.



Her final trait was unlucky, which is actually a pretty good trait for an inventor.  And, as if to deny that bad luck, the very first option that came up for her lifetime wish was Monster Maker  .

The wish to make a miner that she was already holding suddenly became large enough to count and everything was looking very promising indeed  .

I should have known better  .

[hazelnut]

Of Big Bangs, Bait and Bugs

(Especially bugs .)

In accordance with family tradition, Jacinth and Josh moved into a cottage on the edge of the lot, leaving the family home to their grown-up daughter.





I'd been wanting an excuse to use all of my fairyish stuff from the store .

Jemima hardly noticed – she was too busy inventing.  By the end of her birthday, she'd maxed the skill and fulfilled an unprecedented three 5000+ point wishes.



She graduated as Valedictorian and Most Likely to Burn Down Her Own House – clearly her classmates hadn't heard about Jilaiya's Fireproof Homestead reward.



She went straight from the ceremony to commit the usual act of vandalism at the military base  .





Then she visited a variety of fishing spots and polished off Amateur Ichthyologist.



With perfect timing, she received the Master Invention opportunity about five minutes after she'd caught her twentieth type of fish.

I'd been setting up for this one for ages.  Juliet had mastered inventing and taken some palladium into the science centre soon after joining the family.  Then she waited for a pink diamond to spawn – but none appeared.  Towards the end of her life, though, she found one, already heart-cut, in the consignment store.  It had been sitting in Jasmine's inventory ever since.

So Jemima spent several hours popping in and out of the science lab with the requested items, finally came out with the life core and settled down at her inventing bench.



True to form, she'd finished all of her adult requirements apart from two opportunities within four days of becoming a young adult.  Of course, her great early start as a teen hadn't done her much good.  Hopefully she'd do better this time.  But then again, she was unlucky.

Then I realised that it had been several real-life days since her birthday.  How could it only have been four Sim days?  Jemima must have the non-ageing bug .  Except that she hadn't: going back into previous saves and comparing the days left to her next birthday with the game clock, they were completely consistent.  She really had been that quick.  It was just that the game was lagging, freezing and crashing so much that it felt much longer.

It had all started with Jacob, not too surprisingly.  He hadn't taken any more trips into space but only seemed to exist in three locations: at work, just outside the door of the police station or just inside the front door at home.  Resetting him after work would return him home but not make him act normally once he got there.  He just performed odd contortions to reach any object he wanted, sometimes zipping across to a chair briefly before returning to his favourite spot.  Sleeping was probably the weirdest: there was a Jacob-shaped space tossing and turning under his bedclothes but he appeared to be buried in the ground somewhere under the front door.  Eventually, he got stuck outside work and couldn't be reset.  Just as well I wasn't bothered about another Hall of Fame entry…

I installed the usual NRaas mods and tried out Master Controller's rather more drastic Reset Sim option, which I'd never used before.  It worked perfectly – and I noticed that the 'ghost' car that had been stuck in his inventory for ages had disappeared.  Come to think of it, hadn't all the freezes and crashes happened when someone was either travelling by car or about to get into one?  So the whole family got reset in turn and the other two phantom vehicles that had been passing around their inventories also got deleted.  (Overwatch also removed over 3000 cars from around the town at 3am the following day, which I think is a record for my games outside Bridgeport.)

Rather meanly, I made Jacob quit his job.  Having picked up workaholic as a social group trait, he wasn't at all happy about this development.

Suddenly, the game was behaving as it should.  Well, apart from Jemima's phone not ringing.  I put her into the business career and she quickly got her second opp.  Then there were more long waits, broken only by requests to catch various exotic fish, which she turned down.  With a game as buggy as this one was turning out to be, the last thing I wanted was for anyone to travel.  I was seriously regretting keeping World Adventures switched on.  It had seemed like a good idea at the start, because I like the photography skill and the holiday worlds were a potential source of interesting genes if I ran out of original Barnacle Bay townies.  Now it was just drowning out the home world opportunities.

While the Lyffe-Staites and I waited for an opportunity that Jemima could do safely, Jasmine called her old friend Rommich Ti'Zuvajug, choosing a day when he wasn't supposed to be dying just to be on the safe side.



Jemima introduced herself properly.  More fascinating Earthling behaviour for him to study!



Then, with rather less social correctness, she threw an elixir to speed up the process of becoming friends.  I was worried that he might fly off back to Sixam or die of old age before I could get him moved in.



I was right to be worried.  He turned out to be just into his fourth century:



(Also, aren't his traits wonderful?  )

He was given the family's one and only deathflower as a stopgap and Jasmine started making her first-ever batch of ambrosia.



Meanwhile, Jemima and Rommich carried on chatting.



No, Rommich, you're not supposed to be fancying her grandmother!  I know she's nearer to your own age but it's Jemima who needs the alien husband.



That's better.

It had been a long day and Jemima had work in the morning.  She went to bed while Rommich ate his ambrosia…



…and followed it up with an equally delicious space rock.

[hazelnut]

Of Big Bangs, Bait and Bugs (cont'd)

With one day left on his age bar, Josh finally became a Descendant of da Vinci.



I missed it, because the game had frozen again  .

He didn't have long to bask in the glow of his 'very fulfilled' moodlet.  A few hours later, his relaxation in front of the telly was rudely interrupted by a visit from Grim.





Then I noticed that Jasmine's portrait had gone red.  Surely doing the laundry wasn't that bad, even after a death in the family?

No, she'd decided to emulate her grandson.  And there were no cars involved this time.  She'd been wandering around the lot collecting up dirty washing and had somehow been whisked across to the sea right at the edge of the world.  The combination of hunger, tiredness, raging hydrophobia and mourning Josh had made her mood plummet.  And who could blame her?



I was very impressed that she had changed into the appropriate clothing for swimming, was treading water and had somehow kept hold of the laundry bag despite everything .

A normal in-game reset got her back to the shore and she returned home to a meal and bed with no further incidents but I was clearly going to have to try something else to stand any chance of getting to the end of the game.  I'd never used S3PE to clean up save files before, and it's not supposed to help with lag anyway, but it seemed worth a go.  The file reduced to about a fifth of its previous size – pretty impressive.  Maybe travelling is a possibility after all.

It may be pure coincidence but the bugs also seem to have disappeared for now.  Fingers crossed...


With a certain symmetry, Jemima got her third doable opportunity when she was four days away from adulthood.  It turned out to be one that needed a return to work to complete but she was almost there.  Both of her potential occult best friends had died of old age by now, so she and I looked around for a replacement – and I noticed that Bernadette, her old schoolfriend/romantic interest now had a yellow border around her portrait.



Like Dude, she'd become a food vendor at the summer festival.  Once her shift had ended, Jemima invited Bernadette over and set to work on reviving their friendship.  Elixirs wouldn't work (another bug?) and so she had to do it the old-fashioned way.



Which naturally meant pillow fighting  .



Best friend in place!  Now to return to work and polish off this thing!

Except that I'd failed to notice it was about to be Leisure Day again .  Jemima and Rommich spent most of it on a long and decidedly childish date.



Appropriate for an imaginary friend, I suppose.  And Rommich had never had a chance to experience earthly pursuits for younglings.

With the opp finally handed in, Jemima got out her phone and set up a wedding party for the following morning.



Jade and Jim were both in attendance, as was Jonah Lai, the very last surviving original townie (although Grim came for him the following day).

The bride's mother was faintly embarrassing, not by crying buckets but by going on and on about the state of her bladder.  If ever a Sim needed the steel bladder reward, it's Jacinth Lyffe-Staite.  Such a pity that Jacob had claimed it as one of his unique rewards .

She finally calmed down enough to goo over the exchanging of rings.



Uniquely amongst my recent Sims, Jacinth and Rommich went straight from the ceremony into spontaneous romantic interactions…



"I'd totally go for a honeymoon in Sunlit Tides if only the watcher wasn't so paranoid about save-file bloat"

…and then they both autonomously went into cake-cutting mode.



Unfortunately, Rommich managed to drop his action queue before reaching the cake but it was still a good try.


Jemima

Life state: imaginary friend
Traits: eccentric, light sleeper, angler, proper, unlucky
Lifetime wish: Monster Maker (not going to happen)
Spouse: Rommich Ti'Zuvajug (alien)

Toddler requirements: best friends with both parents, reached  level 3 in two skills (peg box, xylophone)
Child requirements: on honour roll, one opportunity completed (Research Project)
Teenager requirements: on honour roll, reached  level 3 in mausoleum clerk part-time job, had a romantic interest (Bernadette Richey)

Occult best friend: Bernadette Richey (witch)
Two career rewards: Inventor's Honour Trophy, Medal of Genius
Three unique opportunities: Master Invention, Making Coffee the Executive Way, Seeking More Favourable Taxes
Four unique Lifetime Happiness Rewards: Efficient Inventor, Suave Seller, Change of Taste, Hover Bed
Five unique 5000+ point wishes: Build a Miner, Build a Time Machine, Master Inventing Skill, Catch Every Type of Fish, Master Fishing Skill
Six unique skill challenges: Scrap Collector, Amateur Ichthyologist, Consignment Store Sales, Consignment Profit, Consignment Store Reputation, The Ultimate Invention
Seven items for museum: widgets

[hazelnut]

Alienation

Jemima gave birth three days after her wedding –an alienboo at the first attempt .



Or I suppose he could have been a green-skinned IF.  However, as a toddler, Jaxx had big dark eyes and Rommich's greyed-out interactions confirmed that his son was an alien.



Jaxx showed his superior powers almost immediately, by using the baby walker remotely (although it did look worryingly as though his right arm had been amputated).



Just after this, the game crashed to desktop again and I decided it might be wiser to go back to the old tried-and-tested ways of teaching toddler skills.



Rommich developed an odd new bug where he suddenly needed to sleep at least as much as the other members of the household.  Of course, as an alien, he didn't have an energy meter - and he didn't seem to have negative moodlets appearing either.  He just kept sneaking off to bed whenever he got the chance.  I'd got used to having him around at night to tend the garden, fix stuff and amuse me  .

(Also, suntanned aliens look nearly as incongruous as suntanned vampires.)



Jaxx completed his toddler requirements and became a child…



…and qualified for tutoring from Jafar.  (I swear he looks more puzzled by each generation's homework.  Modern maths and such, no doubt .)



Jaxx aged up to teen and decided to fully embrace his alien heritage.  (In more ways than one: unlike my previous half-alien offspring, he seemed to have inherited all of Rommich's abilities, including not having to sleep.)



He had a rather stylish black version of the outfit for formalwear but never got to wear it – as usual, the cemetery job got in the way of going to Prom.  His work outfit was also quite memorable in its own way:



That was Jaxx celebrating reaching level 3.  I was cheering, too – that job is definitely my least favourite Life States requirement.  He packed in his part-time career and registered as a self-employed gardener instead.



On the subject of careers, Rommich became a five-Star Chef, earning the family's second fancy fridge and completing his lifetime wish.  Since he was now in his late eighties according to his in-game age (or something like 340 in reality), it wasn't before time.



As a hopeless romantic, Jaxx didn't find the teen romantic interest requirement too taxing – and they didn't have to break up afterwards.



Nice manly pose there, Jaxx .



He graduated as Valedictorian (of course) and Most Likely to Get Married.  Nope, don't think so – although Jemima was hopeful.



Even before he'd graduated, Jaxx as registered as a firefighter.  He still shared gardening duties with his father but otherwise concentrated on handiness (and especially on repeated upgrades to that poor, long-suffering umbrella).



Sadly, he was soon left to look after the garden on his own.





He completed his six challenges nearly as fast as Jemima (and had done another three before he'd finished off the other requirements).  His opps were also fairly straightforward – fittingly for a would-be Renaissance Sim, one each from three different skills.  Wishes were the big problem.  I was very glad I'd held off on the property investments until this point but it was still frustrating that he didn't roll the wish to max gardening – what kind of a Renaissance Sim was he?

Jaxx invited Ami, his romantic interest, over.  After all, there was now space in the household.  Why not get him to propose?  Hopefully he'd pop a wish to get married in a day or two.



I don't quite know what went wrong.  They'd been great together as teens and their traits seemed compatible but the dreaded 'rude guest' moodlet popped up almost as soon as she'd set foot on the lot and they were soon very displeased with each other  .

Jaxx carried on with his third skill, charisma, undeterred by the loss of Ami's friendship.  A night-time visit to the graveyard secured his occult best friend.  (Well, I had to get a ghost in there somewhere  .)



And this time he did wish to max the skill.  On week 42, day 3, with just under a week of young adulthood left, Jaxx completed both his lifetime wish and his dynasty requirements.



And that's it.  I'd originally planned to do an eighth generation, even though it doesn't fit with all the sevens in the rules, to play with all of the non-human, non-ghost life states.  As it is, the game had become so incredibly buggy that I didn't really feel all that involved with poor Jaxx - hence the chapter title - and certainly didn't want to struggle on any further .


Jaxx

Life state: alien
Traits: athletic, disciplined, slob, hopeless romantic, vegetarian
Lifetime wish: Renaissance Sim

Toddler requirements: best friends with both parents, reached  level 3 in two skills (xylophone, peg box)
Child requirements: on honour roll, one opportunity completed (Pile of Permission Slips)
Teenager requirements: on honour roll, reached  level 3 in mausoleum clerk part-time job, had a romantic interest (Ami Skinner)

Occult best friend: Ophelia Piece (ghost)
Two career rewards: Firefighter of the Year Trophy, Firefighter's Coat
Three unique opportunities: Bring Back the Jams, Perfect Produce, Keep It Up
Four unique Lifetime Happiness Rewards: Super Green Thumb, Simmunity (he was the only member of the family to suffer from the sniffles), Never Dull, Food Replicator
Five unique 5000+ point wishes: Master Handiness Skill, Upgrade 50 objects, Own 5 Venues, Own 7 Venues, Master Charisma Skill
Six unique skill challenges: Master Planter, Plumber, Tinkerer, Electrician, Celebrity, Personable
Seven items for museum: garden produce



The family graveyard:



Jake; Juliet, Jadis and Jamal; Luisa; Dude, Jamuna and Jyoti; Josh; Rommich.

Jim, Jasper and Jade were still alive at the end, as was Crypta To'Vedachot, the other alien.  Weirdly, so was Jafar's teen romantic interest, Jill Simons, who was an entirely normal human Sim in all other respects.

[wa-wa-world]

Wow congratulations on finishing hazelnut! You did that so fast it sucks about your game becoming too glitchy Jax was a really cute sim!

[hazelnut]

I've just done some checking with previous games: my other Life States took 15 weeks longer but was in a more stable town.  I suspect that Sunset Valley, Riverview, Twinbrook and Lucky Palms are the places to choose to play multi-generation games.  I knew Barnacle Bay had pathing issues, notably the bridge leading to the little island with the large modern house whose name I've forgotten, where the Golds lived briefly before the flying cars incident, and the disconnected road just beyond.  I thought I'd be OK f I avoided those places.  Wrong.  It turns out that this game was the longest I've played in Barnacle Bay - the Haskills were only there for a single generation, while the Golds, who lived there for four generations, were only in the town for 19 weeks, thanks to the medium lifespan and other 4x4 rules.  If I play there long-term again, I'll probably use Ellacharmed's fixed version (which I realise wouldn't be allowed for a dynasty).


Also, although it doesn't count for HoF purposes, here is the picture of all of the heirs together:


Standing: Jacob (gen 3 - werewolf), Jafar (gen 2 - witch) and Jaxx (gen 7 - alien)
Sitting: Jacinth (gen 5 - fairy), Jasmine (founder - genie), Jilaiya (gen 4 - vampire) and Jemima (gen 6 - imaginary friend)