They Grow Up So FastPlaying on medium speed, the kids seemed to grow up ridiculously quickly.
Poppy and Primrose were soon teens…
…and Lupin became a child.
Alison and Billy were both now adults, despite his fondness for tattoos and her occasional visits to the salon for makeovers. Ally’s garden was doing well but she wasn’t yet able to plant special seeds, and her fishing skill was still a long way short of being able to catch deathfish. So Billy was prised away from his easel and sculpting station and made to learn alchemy, with a view to discovering the fountain of youth elixir and maybe a few other useful things, like wish-enhancing serum. Fortunately, he seemed to enjoy that, too (and maybe had some kind of natural talent – he was my first alchemist to avoid accidental toadification).
Alison went out in search of her next
victim lover. Riverview seemed to be filling up with supernaturals, so maybe Fairy Dad could be next. Unfortunately for my plans, George Dean proved resistant to her charms and Bob Newbie was more interested in frolicking with Constance Shelley in their tiny-ball-of-light forms.
Sherman Bagley’s transformation was less obvious, until Ally started talking to him and discovered his new interest in kelp.
She made a move…
…not entirely successfully. Maybe dehydration was setting in. Whatever it was, he got away from her and headed for the pool. She eventually persuaded him that the shower would work equally well.
She didn’t seem entirely happy afterwards – maybe his scales were rough. On the other hand, she was delighted with the result.
Gromwell was the first of her children to be born in the hospital, largely so that Billy could take her there and share the new baby moodlet.
The paparazzi were starting to take an interest in her activities but so far she’d manage to avoid becoming a celebrity, to my considerable relief. The constant disgrace was a big factor in giving up on earlier attempts at the challenge.
There were more birthdays. Gromwell became a toddler and definitely took after his father – apart from being yet another normal human…
…and the twins had their young adult birthdays and so, sadly, had to move out.
They both got jobs before they left: Poppy followed her father into music and Primrose became a scientist. Sadly, story progression being what it is (or rather isn’t
) these days, neither is likely to progress beyond the base grade or to achieve her lifetime wish (Golden Tongue, Golden Fingers and Become a Creature-Robot Crossbreeder, respectively).
They left behind some souvenirs of their schooldays. Poppy had quite a collection…
…and had also earned enough happiness points to buy her mother a magic vacuum.
Primrose, who’d somehow managed to miss Prom and hadn’t been to any after-school clubs as a teen, largely because she was helping out with the garden, left only her scout’s sash.
Ally had a wish to learn the athletic skill and, immediately after getting her first point, had the ‘Going Pro’ opportunity. Since she’d just rolled one of her frequent wishes to quit her current job, she went off to the stadium and signed up. Bob Newbie was one of her co-workers but definitely wasn’t interested in being more than a friend. Travis McDermott, though, seemed more of a possibility.
She lured him home and into the shower. No chimes.
And then he accused her of having issues and stormed off.
Lupin and Gromwell had a shared birthday.
Ally, still in the professional sports career, inadvertently became a celebrity as a result of talking to her colleagues: I hadn’t noticed that Tatiana Ivanov had acquired a star. After work, she invited Travis over again. Despite his earlier tantrum, he seemed quite happy to visit and even to join her in the shower again. This time, there were chimes.
(To me, Travis’ work outfit looks more suited to rock music than sports
.)
Ally’s first celebrity disgrace followed immediately after. I’m not sure how she was caught cheating, given that they were alone in the house, but the ways of Sim paparazzi are mysterious. Since previous attempts had convinced me that the Above Reproach reward is completely useless, she bought a moodlet manager instead and started learning social networking as a way of repairing damaged friendships.
The following day was Alison and Billy’s first wedding anniversary. They went to the summer festival together and spent their time eating snow cones, skating and getting their photos taken – although Ally kept having to rush off to the loos to throw up. That night, the pregnancy was confirmed.
Ally spent most of this pregnancy hiding from the paparazzi, peacefully tending her garden and carving pumpkins. For some reason, even though it’s perma-summer in Riverview, she decided that Hallowe’en must be approaching and wanted to be ready. Or something. Whatever the reason, carved pumpkins started appearing everywhere.
And then smashed pumpkins – it appeared that Billy liked wrecking jack o’lanterns as much as Alison liked creating them.
Ally’s fifth child and third son was born in hospital, like his older brother. Again, the paparazzi were in attendance – and Alison was in disgrace again, for ‘having a child out of wedlock’, despite being married.
Welcome, Heath. It’s a strange world you’ve been born into
.
