The Honeyheart Short Dynasty

[Beks]

Thanks Trident! I am planning to have Fern max Martial Arts, yes. It was pretty easy for Hickory to max back in generation three, so I'm looking forward to doing it again. (She might even get to max athletic for an extra point!) I'm so glad you're enjoying the Honeyhearts!

[Beks]

Chapter 28 – This May Come as a Shock To You

Look who’s making toys disappear! And cats, possibly…

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Speaking of cats, look at this little cutie pie. Kip spends his first night in the household curled up like a blob on the floor and I can’t handle it. (I know, I know, the rest of the world flipped out over Pets, and then got over it, approximately eight years ago. I am not sorry.)

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That night (or whatever night we’re on), Fern has her teen birthday before I realize she’s due for a birthday. I get to roll her trait, yay! I roll...Mean-Spirited, dang it.

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So now our lovely heir shares two traits with her mother. Both Honeyheart ladies manage to be Good and Mean-Spirited at the same time. I guess they mean well, even if their execution tends to be questionable?

The next day starts out normally enough. Fern goes off to her first day of high school. Little Lilac gets busy with her disappearing toys. Kip runs about and hisses at the humans. Raymond takes care of the garden. Minnow paints. And Daisy fixes the appliances that her family members keep breaking, working to increase her handiness skill.

Until this happens.

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How can someone whose life goal is to max handiness, and who is already at level 5 of the skill, die of electrocution?!

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I guess you have to be Unlucky.

April is first to arrive on the scene, followed by the newest maid.

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Maid: “Woo-hoo-hooo! Somebody HOT lives here!”

Poor Daisy. Grim arrives (though stays out of the room, as usual) and transforms Daisy’s crackling body into a pale yellow ghost on the floor.

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Then he pulls her to her feet and starts...yelling at her?

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Grim: “Oh, it’s YOU!”

Daisy: “Me?”

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Grim: “Teehee! You silly child. You’re at what, level 5 handiness? How ironic!"

And to be brought back to life by Death itself because he finds your misfortunes amusing...I guess you also have to be Unlucky.

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I’ve known about the Unlucky death perk for a while, but I’ve never actually experienced it in-game before, so it’s pretty exciting for me to witness. And if anyone deserves a second chance at life (especially after such an undeserved death), it’s Daisy.

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“Hey man, thanks for the get-out-of-jail-free card! You won’t be sorry!”

Grim takes his leave in merry spirits. Maybe he knows he’ll be back soon enough to take Daisy for real. I mean, not that soon...but we ARE on the short lifespan.

I don’t think Daisy is going to waste any of her remaining time.

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“Yay! I cheated death!”

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“Hey Minnow, guess what! I just got killed and revived all in the span of five minutes!”

“Yeah, that wasn’t stressful at all. Congrats?”

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“First I was like, Oh god, have I been struck by lightning? Then I felt all my limbs go numb, and then I felt like I was on fire! And then my vision went all splotchy, and then I fell over. And then I was standing up and Grim was LAUGHING at me! And then I––”

“I know, Daisy. I literally watched it all happen.”

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“So...does that mean you wanna hear the story of my resurrection again?”

“NO!”

So, yes. Daisy dies and comes back to life and has way too much fun retelling the story to her big brother.
Anyway. Back to normalcy.

Normalcy is relative, of course. Fern doesn’t meet any boys at school that day, and we’re already well into crunch time for finding her a spouse. I spend the next day or so in-game scouring the town for eligible bachelors and come across some frustratingly limited options.

This first contender is a ghost, which I'm pretty sure makes him against the rules. He's a very pretty ghost, and for a while I tossed around the idea of scrounging up some ambrosia and bringing him to life...but again, we'd be toying with the rules pretty severely, and also our level 10 cook is ten days past his expiration date. So.

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Master Controller tells me that there are a couple of other townie boys around Fern's age. Master Controller does NOT tell me that both of these boys are fairies.

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Look at this boy's smouldering gaze. *sigh* I bet he would've made some beautiful Honeyheart babies.

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And this guy, an actual human, seems to have potential...until Fern meets him in person and is unable to do any romantic interactions with him. Why? Because he's actually Raymond's half-brother, of course!

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"Hey, you're pretty cute."

"Um, yeah, you're technically my grand-niece, so like, ew."

And that is all of our options exhausted, at least for now. Our last remaining hope lies in the possibility of child townies aging up in the next 24 hours.

Speaking of aging up...it's Lilac's birthday!

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After an evil giggle of excitement, Lilac ages up into a Snob.

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Next time, we’ll see some more birthdays, and hopefully complete the search for Fern's spouse. Is there anyone out there for her to love?!?

[Nindigo]

Hey, amaranthin. I love reading this and your other story. You've got excellent humor and writing skills. Thanks for returning to the Honeyhearts

[Trident]

Kip is so cute!! Oh, Daisy.....yikes. I'm glad EA gave us that Unlucky perk.

[mpart]

I just binged read this in a few seatings! It's great!
I got to say, my favorite couple was Ida and Alfie, but Minnow and April are super adorable. I can't wait to see what is in store for Fern and I'm glad April didn't die. Having a sim have the unlucky trait is both exhausting and hilarious. XD

[Beks]

Hey, amaranthin. I love reading this and your other story. You've got excellent humor and writing skills. Thanks for returning to the Honeyhearts

Thank you so much, Nindigo! That means a lot. I'm so glad you're enjoying the stories. Honestly, I don't know why I stayed away from the Honeyhearts for so long. I guess I hit a dull spot, but now that I'm past that, I love playing (and writing about) them again.

Kip is so cute!! Oh, Daisy.....yikes. I'm glad EA gave us that Unlucky perk.

I know, right? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, though...it's like the ultimate stroke of luck.

I just binged read this in a few seatings! It's great!
I got to say, my favorite couple was Ida and Alfie, but Minnow and April are super adorable. I can't wait to see what is in store for Fern and I'm glad April didn't die. Having a sim have the unlucky trait is both exhausting and hilarious. XD

Yay for binge reading! That's my favorite way to read stories on this forum. I'm honored that you've taken the time to read the whole story! Ida and Alfie were my favorites, too. Sometimes the best spouses are the hardest ones to find...or at least I've been telling myself that throughout this LENGTHY search process for Fern.

[Beks]

Chapter 29 -- Absolute Zero

The hunt for Fern’s spouse is perhaps the most challenging one yet. After a full day of MasterController snooping, family tree climbing, and a fair bit of actual in-game conversing to see who Fern likes, I come up empty-handed. The following day is Fern’s last day as a teenager. I start panicking. I start imagining Fern’s tragic future as the bride of some old geezer who kicks the bucket a day after the wedding. I wonder if we should have found a way to marry a fairy, or a ghost, or heck, a zombie from our own front yard. I imagine all kinds of delightful scenarios.

And then, the next morning, all my panic evaporates.

A couple of younger sims have their teen birthdays the night before. One of them happens to be two very important things––male, and human. I send Fern right over to meet him bright and early, and…

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...it’s love at first sight. Or at least attraction.

Fern has met a lot of potential spouses who ended up NOT being potential spouses, and oddly enough, she was never attracted to any of them. Kelvin Morganthe is the first boy she’s expressed any real interest in. (I know his face doesn’t look like it, but I swear, every other second he’s with Fern, he looks like a little kid on Christmas morning. He’s probably nervous or something.)

See? Fern offers him a bouquet of flowers and he hides his face in them. He’s just nervous!

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Things move along VERY quickly for these two. They’re not even past acquaintances yet when the option comes up to confess her attraction, and Fern jumps at the chance. Moments later, Fern plants her first kiss on a very lucky boy indeed.

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With that (finally) settled, let’s check in with the rest of the family!

Kip the kitten is no longer a kitten. He experiences a very warp-y birthday and becomes a beautiful, fluffy grown-up cat.

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Minnow also celebrates a birthday--his elder birthday. I think this is sad. April thinks it’s hilarious.

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Lilac has a surprisingly fun and busy two-day childhood. She goes to school (like, one time), plays in the treehouse, learns to fish (during the .5 seconds in which I was planning to resurrect a ghost with ambrosia), presides over many royal courts, and gets a popsicle from the first ice cream truck I’ve ever spotted in Moonlight Falls.

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Daisy, newly reborn and loving it, spends almost all her time playing with Kip. Her Lifetime Wish of having ten boyfriends has sort of fallen by the wayside...but there’ll be plenty of time when she’s an elder, right? That’s only like two relationships a day!

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Speaking of boyfriends, now that Fern has one, she’s free to focus her last day as a teenager on learning her skill of choice: Martial Arts. She spends the afternoon swatting away at Hickory’s old wooden dummy, observed by a very confused Kip.

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That night, it’s double birthday time. Both Lilac and Fern are becoming young women! Of slightly different ages, of course.

Lilac ages up in her queenly crown…

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...and takes on the Perfectionist trait.

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More importantly, though, Lilac is finally old enough to practice magic. She makes a terrifyingly beautiful witch.

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Fern follows with a classic bathroom birthday.

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Our lovely heir rolls a lovely trait: No Sense of Humor.  This is a trait I have literally never played with, so I’m a little bit curious to see what it does. But also I’m not very curious, because um, I NEED humor in my life, please?

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Anyway. The good news is that Fern actually has the option to choose Perfect Mind, Perfect Body as her Lifetime Wish. That means that if she maxes both Martial Arts and Athletic (which she should, since Hickory did so easily), she will earn not two, but THREE points for the challenge. Hurrah! Her final set of traits, by the way, is Disciplined, Neurotic, Good, Mean-Spirited, and No Sense of Humor.

The next morning, Fern rolls out of bed and immediately picks up the phone to call her honey.

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Kelvin arrives on the lot just as the school bus pulls up to take Lilac to school. Kelvin would be getting on that bus, too, were it not for a mysteriously sudden birthday that strikes him for no apparent reason.

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I forget why Fern is wandering around the yard in her nightie here, but...she is.

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“Oh, there you are, Kelvin. I was worried you got on the bus by accident.”

“Got on the--what? Bust? I didn’t get on any--I mean, you have a nice--that is--”

“Don’t hurt yourself, babe. Let’s get you some better clothes, yeah?”

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Kelvin does get some better clothes, and a crisper haircut. He has a nice set of traits--Slob, Insane, Brave, Genius, and Cat Person. His Lifetime Wish is to be an Alchemy Artisan, which means that--huzzah!--he has a purpose in life. He’ll be maxing alchemy, like so many Honeyhearts before him. He’s also currently employed as a Fortune Teller. I’d like to let him keep it, but we'll see how much it eats into his alchemy-practicing time.

Our two young lovers go on their first real date to Moonlight Point or whatever it's called, where Kelvin can’t wait another second to propose to Fern.

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“Kelvin, what are you doing?! I’m supposed to propose to YOU! Now I’m going to have to take YOUR last name!”

“Yeah, but the Watcher isn’t going to remember that until after we’re married, so this is how it’s gotta be.”

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“Fern Honeyheart, will you do me the honor of becoming my Mrs. Morganthe?”

“Until we go down to City Hall and get our names changed to Honeyheart, yes.”

Fern and Kelvin have a quick private wedding right there on the mountaintop.

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Ahh, nothing like a nose/chin makeout to finish a perfect wedding. Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Morganthe-For-Now!

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The newlyweds race back up the very long, very windy hill path and return to the Honeyheart homestead…

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...where they enjoy a very happy woohoo as husband and wife.

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Big things are happening in the next chapter. Stay tuned!

[mpart]

Man, every time I read one of your chapters I want to try the short dynasty challenge again. It would only be my fifth try. XD

Fern and Kelvin are so cute together! I'm so happy everything worked out for Fern. The struggle of trying to find a spouse for heirs is real.

[Trident]

Daisy looks lovely! Between her and Kelvin, that baby is going to have one very square jaw.

Like mpart said, every time I read an update, I get an itch to try a short dynasty. Hmm.....

[Beks]

You guys should totally do short dynasties! I'm having a lot of fun with this one, and I'd love to read more people's stories.

[Beks]

Chapter 30 - Cribs & Cats

After their private hilltop-overlooking-the-beach wedding, Kelvin and Fern decide to get started on the next generation.

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Speaking of expanding the family...since Kelvin is a Cat Person, it’s only sensible that we get him his very own kitty. He picks out a very pretty kitten named Zelda who, in retrospect, looks waaaay too much like Kip. This is going to be confusing.

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Look at this gorgeous little nugget, though! Zelda’s only trait so far is Friendly, which is in definite contrast to Kip’s Piggy, Skittish, and Destructive traits.

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Zelda, sensing another cat’s presence in her new household, takes shelter in the safety of her private fish mouth, where she lies in wait for Kip to appear.

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When he does, she ventures out to get acquainted. Will they get along?

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Oh, WILL they! These two hit it off quite splendidly for such different cats.

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In other news, April has been making steady progress with her guitar skill. She’s very good at ignoring her sister-in-law’s ridiculing throughout her practice.

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In the end, though, it isn’t Daisy who witnesses April maxing out the skill--it’s Ida.

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This particular ghost goes for a...uh...different sort of booing.

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Ida: “Boooo! I thought this was supposed to be MUSIC! BOOOOO!”

At this point, I spontaneously decide to renovate the Honeyheart house. And by “renovate”, I mean “demolish and completely start from scratch”. Yes, we’re in the middle of a generation, kind of; yes, we have a full household with a lot going on; no, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do this now. But we’re doing it now. Because I FEEL like it.

I confess I was a tiny bit sad to demolish the old house, since it stayed the same for almost eight generations. But then again...it stayed the same for almost eight generations. That’s a really long time to see the same thing every time I open the game, and I’m not very good at small renovations. So I decided to just start fresh.

Here’s a shot of the newly renovated lot. I actually made these changes a couple of real-life weeks ago, and I’m really questioning my choice of the greenish bricks around the lower half of the house. Even so, I’m happy with the landscaping I added (I know, I did landscaping! Me!), if nothing else.

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Here’s the front of the house. Again, why the green brick, exactly…?

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Here’s the lower floor of the house…

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...and the upper floor…

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...and the pregnant lady vomiting in the bathroom. Oh, sorry, that’s not part of the tour.

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Kelvin’s Lifetime Wish is to be an Alchemy Artisan. He’ll be the third Honeyheart to (hopefully) earn a point by maxing alchemy. He gets started right away and picks up the skill quickly.

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Minnow, who has recently become an elder, spends all his time painting and rocking in one of the house’s many rockers. On the day his life bar maxes out, he also reaches level 10 of the skill. Congrats, Minnow!

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April’s elder birthday hits her when she’s outside in the near-dark. Thank goodness for the birthday sparkles. (April’s two pregnancies bought her a lot of extra time, so she’s several days behind her husband now.)

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That same night, Lilac becomes a young adult.

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Lilac's final set of traits: Heavy Sleeper, Slob, Snob, Perfectionist, and Animal Lover. She picks up the Zoologist LTW. Our full house is going to be even fuller!

As Fern’s pregnant belly grows, so does her Martial Arts skill--veeerrrryyy sloooowwwwly. At least, it sure seems like meditating is the slowest way to increase the skill. Fern spends most of her pregnancy on another plane of consciousness and only earns one point. *sigh*

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Zelda ages up soon after joining the family and selects the tippy-top of the cat condo as her preferred sleeping spot. I still can’t get over how cute these cats look when they’re all curled up and floopy.

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See? SEE?! I have about nine screenshots of these two sleeping in the cat condo. I think you know why.

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Yes, things are moving steadily along for the Honeyhearts. In the rare moments when everyone in the household is asleep, Zinnia keeps peaceful watch from our zen-ful new lofty thing in the upstairs hallway.

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Next time, we’ll meet the heir for Generation Eight!

[mpart]

You've definitely inspired me to give the short dynasty challenge another shot!   

Little Zelda is so adorable! She's absolutely precious.
The house looks great! I think the green goes well with the white siding and landscaping, but that's just my opinion. 
I'm excited to see what generation eight will be like.

[Trident]

Zelda is SO cute. Of course there's another alchemist. Maybe it's something about Moonlight Falls that gets them to roll the wish. The landscaping looks lovely!!

Wow, eight generations already....if this was an immortal dynasty, you'd probably be on like, generation two :V!

[KRae]

Rocking chairs! A perfect way to corral ghosts.

[Beks]

So sorry for the late replies, everyone! I am working on getting caught up on this story, as I have a lot of screenshots to go through from the past few weeks. New chapters will be up shortly.

You've definitely inspired me to give the short dynasty challenge another shot!   

Little Zelda is so adorable! She's absolutely precious.
The house looks great! I think the green goes well with the white siding and landscaping, but that's just my opinion.   
I'm excited to see what generation eight will be like.

Yay! I love your short dynasty so far. I hope you have fun with it.

And thank you! I'm glad someone else agrees with past me on the green brickwork.

Generation Eight coming right up!

Zelda is SO cute. Of course there's another alchemist. Maybe it's something about Moonlight Falls that gets them to roll the wish. The landscaping looks lovely!!

Wow, eight generations already....if this was an immortal dynasty, you'd probably be on like, generation two :V!

Yes, alchemy is a very popular skill for this family (the only family I've ever played in Moonlight Falls, so maybe you're right about the town being the reason!). That's one of the reasons I love playing in MF. The whole mood and feel is just so magical and spooky.

I know, that's crazy to think about. The short lifespan maxes out at about 27 days, which is like a third of what the normal lifespan is.

Rocking chairs! A perfect way to corral ghosts.

I never thought of it that way, but you are absolutely right!