Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty (Gen 2 Pt. 8)

[Trip]

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty

"Because I'm not sticking with a last name for ten generations, rofl" - Trip, 2019

Rahiti, Part One
Rahiti, Part Two
Rahiti, Part Three
Rahiti, Part Four
Rahiti, Part Five

Palmyra (Technically)

Heiva, Part One
Heiva, Part Two
Heiva, Part Three
Heiva, Part Four
Heiva, Part Five
Heiva, Part Six
Heiva, Part Seven
Heiva, Part Eight

Hua, Part One
Hua, Part Two
Hua, Part Three
Hua, Part Four
Hua, Part Five
Hua, Part Six
Hua, Part Seven
Hua, Part Eight

[Trip]

Rahiti, Part One

Rahiti Fitzpatrick was born on Week 1, Day 6. It's a little late for a founding couple but this was actually the best time I had gotten (usually he came Day 8 in my test runs). Anyways this was the most stressful start to a decadynasty I could have thought of, though it's not like I got lucky later on either...

Ahem.

Maybe you're wondering how I got here.

This isn't Twinbrook after all.

Twinbrook was my downfall.

Actually Twinbrook is a great dynasty town for a lot of reasons. I mean...I completed an immortal dynasty there. It was fun. It was certainly much easier than Sunlit Tides because I didn't have to drive all around a big atoll just to get to work, but I blame the lack of success of my decadynasty tries there (I think I had three) on being too caught up in the original townies and their stories. Years of playing there means years of pent-up lore that gets in the way of...I dunno...making the honor roll and supermaxing painting. It's 100% more stressful than the immortal dynasty.

I bought Sunlit Tides back in university where the $40 to buy the gold version was worth a whole shift of minimum wage work but I did it anyways. Then I opened it once and never again. So there's no familiarity. No deep lore. No actual investment in my founders no matter who I chose...though that last one fell through once I got attached.

Then I got too into the idea of my epic island decadynasty to back out once the world posed a few issues:

• It's not the best town to pollinate in. Very important. For one, it's the only EA town I can think of where three whole households are blood-related (Kahale, Hale, and Wahine) Compared to Sunset Valley, it's sparse on in-town sims (54 vs 66), though it actually has a better "kids to no kids" ratio than SV (SV had 14 families with kids vs 11 without, ST has 9 with kids vs 12 without, but also three more households I mark as "useless" due to being single elderly women or elderly childless couples, something SV doesn't have) But Sunlit Tides could be a town full of beautiful young childless islanders who certainly aren't related and I'd still have a big issue because I had zero background experience to work with. I quickly accepted the inevitability of second-cousin marriages.
• Uh yeah the transport is absolute garbage, takes an hour or more to get anywhere even in a nice vehicle. I'm not just talking about the criminal volcano warehouse and one hangout being reachable only by walking (not driving) up tall volcanoes. The town's very de-centralized and the atoll has certain chunks that are a mixture of some houses and some commercial lots but not all of them. Choose to live close to the library and your commute to the theatre is sabotaged.
• Many of the eligible founding townies live in modest quarters. The Pleasants, the Parrott sisters, and Silas Allender all have pretty nice houses but the rest are bordering on starter material with little room to expand. Funny enough no household starts with less than $10,000 in cash.
• I wanted to do the lifeguard profession but it is actually impossible to do in Sunlit Tides. It has very shallow oceans and even the water at the beaches starts well after the beach ends, so sims can go "deep" into the water but can't swim until they're well-outside the area that the lifeguard patrols (and they won't go outside it). It's so bizarre.
• This one is my fault but I enabled spring and autumn as seasons (to prepare for any world move to a place that isn't in endless summer) and also made a lot of my household sleep outside. And I had an outdoors garden. No one liked that.

Eh so why did I stay?

• It's pretty.
• The town turns supernatural really, really fast for some reason. In multiple trial runs too. I stockpiled elixirs but rarely had to use them because entire households would turn into fairies with the snap of a finger. This actually makes it loads better than Twinbrook (from a pure pollination/townies living long perspective), which turns almost no one.
• I like a challenge.

But it's been a good run.

Decadynasties only exist to do your dream townie pairings and my dream is always the couple that absolutely no one asked for. Sunlit Tides was full of odd ideas and I found the perfect one. It has everything you expect from me: an age gap, scandalous infidelity, townie genes (inevitable right now).

Elders were spotted: Niles and Isadora Fitzpatrick. Didn't I mark them as a "useless" household? I mean, there's single man Keaunu Kailani: the Harwood Clay of Sunlit Tides (not for skills or cool implied backstory but for making weird babies). But I had a workaround for the Fitzpatricks and we'd have plenty of time with Keaunu anyways without making him a founder.

Niles and Isadora were deeply in love and acted really sappy around town when I wasn't playing them. They're not the couple ripe for an affair. I could have just played with the Pleasants after all! But I can't say that Niles wasn't open to the idea of an affair either, instead of just aging Isadora down. Plus, the scandal. Juicy, juicy scandal. Imagine ruining your awesome childfree marriage of fifty years or so by retiring to Polynesia and knocking up an islander.

He had his pick of the young and beautiful for sure but in the end, I chose the fluffy one who was four days away from being an elder herself.

Kaila was the only Sunlit Tides townie I remembered before this because she's fat, cute, and grows flame fruit in her garden. Although she comes with a celebrity point, it went away when I started in her household with the system turned off (otherwise I would have started with Niles, he has more money). She lived in what was basically a metal shack but she had a pretty sweet career (level 5 science) that also put her more than halfway to completing her LTW (Creature-Robot Crossbreeder). And as it turned out it gave me an awesome list of starter contacts.

Including Niles Fitzpatrick, gone from unemployed to her boss.

Working with Niles actually gave me an awesome head start. He mostly has good traits except for Dislikes Children. On principle I should like it because I'm a childfree harpy too but they reject almost every friendly interaction if you're not friends with them already ("Chat" and "Get to Know" are usually safe). But it doesn't apply for being at work in a rabbithole, schmoozing up to your boss as a job action. It didn't make them friends but a lot of my work was done.

But that also meant that Kaila was a free woman for her first day on the island. The unfortunate reality was that both she and Niles had to die. Niles because I didn't want him forever but Kaila was prime tombstone material. I didn't want siblings for my heir so someone had to take up the mantle of managing the lion's share of friends. And they had to be the opposite of what I wanted out of my founders:

• Young.
• Players love her.
• Has founded a decadynasty before.

Pearl Yang worked with Kaila too and also lived nearby. She's actually not as young as she looks (latter half of the YA stage) and her skills are average, but I didn't care. She'd have all the time in the world to hone them. Pearl came with a couple points each in Logic and Charisma, important for both friends and tutoring the heir. Most importantly, she could have a son to give our heir a friend, give our future heirs more spouse options, and so she and Kaila could eventually have a cool single mums club. She also provided a lot of the contacts for our first few parties.

Kaila is a party animal after all and immediately wanted her hen party after Niles moved in (important), kissed, and proposed. He had a good reason to propose but more on that soon!

First, I wanted to give Kaila a few extra days right away so she didn't age up to elder right after having her kid. She took a few life-extending mud baths at that ridiculous spa and sauna on top of the volcano (then I learned that one of the rich households--I think the Kahales--has one and they're basically next door neighbors). I was very unaware that it slimmed down sims too! I appreciated the look of the new Kaila but I also vowed to never do it again to her. She's proud of her body no matter what. <3

(Clearly the mud bath is not legal for current heirs to use but it's also an autonomous action and my greatest fear...famous last words already?)

The bachelorette party was pretty great...maybe not by the game's standards but I had to get a few things done and I got them done.

For dynasties, you're allowed to place lots from Union Cove into your world even though they're technically player made. It's because you can legally play dynasties in UC so why not? Now I wouldn't recommend every lot (no mansions, you gotta love yourself and your computer first) but what is probably UC's biggest performance downfall is also the greatest strength with attention paid to having lots of lots and tightly-themed areas. The beachy lots near the beach fit perfectly into warm/tropical worlds better than, like, a Bridgeport skyscraper. I still used stock EA lots for the junkyard, salon, and fire station but I liked the help.

Anyways, party at The Shack! This became my favorite place for birthday parties because of how unroutable Kaila's house could get with people...not like that ever stopped me.

Kaila's goal was to throw a party, that's it. Also she's pregnant, who'd have thunk? I would never imply that she didn't do a lick of work during the dynasty because she grew a garden, made a lot of money, fulfilled wishes, and did most of the work of raising her kid. But she had an easy night and Pearl had to learn early on that most of the socializing work was on her shoulders. Not only would she not die on my watch, but she simply knew more people than Kaila from the start and had a boss who wasn't Niles.

She had a best friend in Gilberto Gonzalo already and her boss was Keaunu Kailani, who looked a little too happy to be crashing a bachelorette party. From test runs I basically had their female matches picked out already. I know Pearl x Gilberto would have been an easy match so she could have a kid but she already had a romantic interest in Ricardo Gregario. Now those were famous last words.

I wanted our heir and Pearl's kid to be pretty close in age, but I still had a few days to get a household slot free (I was shuffling around some homeless townies and then moved in Silas Allender) and get Pearl's stuff together in general.

Fast forward to Kaila's wedding and right outta nowhere Ricardo gets accused of cheating and a slap to the face.

Checks the Sims Wiki--

Nothing of value was lost, he starts out romantic with both Pearl and Ursula Lemuel.

This was the [art arboretum] from Union Cove and it comes with a rooftop bar, which definitely saved Pearl that night. She hung out with the Parrott sisters and maybe wondered which one was getting impregnated (it was Clementine).

However, Kaila had the most beautiful shotgun wedding ever, and was thankfully gaining her weight back.

So...right...she had a baby boy named Rahiti, who got to start out life as Athletic and Brave and would get the rest of his traits randomized. Rahiti is a lovely Tahitian name that means "rising sun" but what would have fit better was Heiva, "the athlete training for games".

...I had a good idea of what this boy would do.

Like with every sim who dislikes children, I still caught Niles caring for his son a lot. But I also missed the shot of him right after this being angry with his cane once he put Rahiti down. It was a complicated relationship like that.

I didn't need to reach toddler spam but Rahiti was busy with nothing but being cute. His face turned out to be very Kaila, but with Niles' hair and eye color, and skin right down the middle. And again all my pics are of Niles taking care of him. Kaila did the potty training though.

Pearl finally got pregnant, though her son would be about a week younger than Rahiti. That's all fine and good but who's the father? Why am I (honest to god) missing screenshots of them together? And is this really how I want to spend Rahiti's formative years?

The household had a party at Bronstead and Lowry's (last Union Cove lot I swear) and Pearl is the only sim I've seen ever who went into labor and still went swimming instead. I was able to send her to the hospital and all but she had a good half hour of chilling in the pool before I forced her out. At least everyone panicked with me. Otherwise I think it may have been a birthday party for Gilberto? He did age up at it.

Also she gave birth at the same time that Tonya Tamarind did. Her baby-daddy did NOT follow her so that was another missed screenshot opportunity. She named him Cyprien and he got randomized as a Good Virtuoso.

Join me when I write up the next bit because I banged out most of this generation in a weekend (Rahiti's only barrier is...actually getting a spouse. Everything else is done). I might even drag out this Pearl Yang baby-daddy mystery.

Nah, who am I kidding. Cyprien's father was Maru Mango. And unlike some townie dads, he comes back to visit!


Edit 7/17/2019: replaced with smaller images and added some missing ones. Pobody's nerfect.

[KRae]

I'm glad to see a Sims 3 dynasty to follow. I tried Sims 4 at my daughter's house and didn't care for it. I just like the look and mechanics of TS3 better. I don't have Sunlit Tides so you're presenting me with a whole new cast of characters. Thanks!

[Trip]

I'm glad to see a Sims 3 dynasty to follow. I tried Sims 4 at my daughter's house and didn't care for it. I just like the look and mechanics of TS3 better. I don't have Sunlit Tides so you're presenting me with a whole new cast of characters. Thanks!

@KRae love Sunlit Tides so far but store worlds are pricey and I blame no one for not having one. In spite of my gripes about traveling, performance is otherwise pretty alright.

I play both sims games at the moment but for some reason TS3 is easier when I have my puppy on my lap (NO JOKING BY THE WAY)

[Trip]

Ayyyy so I finally got Rahiti moved to the second household this morning. Nothing's stopping me now.

Rahiti, Part Two

Rahiti and Cyprien had parallel birthdays for different ages, because I ignored them both. Rahiti got half a point for aging up at his mum's costume party though! He almost gets it.

Without any access to the makeover station for my heir (frowny face) I was lagging behind on making him over on time, especially as a toddler and kid. A proper first day of school shot would have been so nice. He shared his first bus ride with Gregario Gonzalo (Gilberto and Tonya Tamarind's kid) and since he comes up several times in Rahiti's life, I'm calling him Greg.

Rahiti's one job during childhood was to get on the honor roll, and once Pearl tutored him to an A right after his birthday (they went to the gym because there's one mostly empty room with a nice stereo; this was also Rahiti's one chance to listen to anything but two stereos of Kid's music at home...I hate pollinating I just wanna listen to some darkwave-) he just had to go to school every day. Homework doesn't take long, and no, I don't work on supermax kills for kids if I can help it. I tried to use Rahiti as a test run for the idea that you get skill opportunities the most while you actively skill (painfully untrue for my boy) but also, he was going into an active profession (since it's not lifeguarding you can guess what). Skills made early wouldn't help him at all.

He got to goof off after school and that's okay.

I don't have too many pictures of Rahiti's final childhood wardrobe but I was okay with how it turned out. I hate the color yellow (both he and Kaila share that favorite; Niles and Pearl are both calming blue, and Cyprien liked blue as well until I forgot and dressed him all in white and green) and I also hate my selection of male hairs because even CC doesn't fix everything, especially when I couldn't see Rahiti as not having thick or curly hair.

Also, kids can read the newspaper I guess. To be fair in other games, I usually cancel my newspaper service but I like having the newspaper deliverers as NPC friend options too much (yes this did end up helping me! As well as Cyprien being an only toddler in a house of working adults and a school-age kid. We got to know his babysitter real well). I was the child of two newspaper workers so I actually can relate, lol. This also helps me keep track of which townie babies I'm losing, so RIP to Greg Gonzalo's twin brother, as dead as paper journalism~

Rahiti's life was going pretty smoothly but the first few weeks of a decadynasty are very deceiving. I was doing a story graveyard deep dive to pick up on strategy and pitfalls (there's a lot of broken images in there thanks to Photobucket being...evil...and plenty of old shames probably but I only say it because my old shames are there too) and a lot of dynasties fail or stop once the heir is old enough to get to work on their requirements. Including many attempts by me! But thankfully the house itself reminded me in plenty of ways that things could always go wrong.

Like when we could no longer cook.

That's right Kaila!

I actually wish I knew the cause because I never fixed the issue. In order I:

• Replaced the stove with an identical one.
• Replaced Kaila's bad base game stove with the equally bad but more retro and kitschy Supernatural one (and the fridge because why not)
• Tore down her whole kitchen and replaced with new counters and everything.
• Put the stove one tile to the right.
• Removed the overhanging pans decor from over it (this wasn't originally an issue of course).

Nothing worked and also the kitchen sink became useless too, but at least I had two other sinks in the house (bathroom + the outhouse shack I built, not to be confused with the alchemy shack where Pearl slept). I was so fed up with the non-working stove and everyone trying to make stove dishes they could never complete that I outright removed it. Everyone lived on quick meals, mac n cheese, and hot dogs for the rest of the gen. Kaila's Natural Cook trait wept.

So before I was done with the stove, Cyprien aged up!

For a brief time, Rahiti got a childhood friend in his own house. He had a few outside of it (mostly Parrott and Gonzalo kids, plus an NPC or two. I got a lot of original townie kids eventually but there was a generational gap for sure) and also nothing to do with Cyprien since he was banned from chess, the activity table, etc. but I did indulge in wishes for friendship and the like. Cyprien even wanted to be best friends with Niles, which absolutely did not happen, Niles hated the little guy.

AND isn't that some cool hair? I've had dynasty kids like anyone else, wonder why I never used it...

...ah yeah. I don't use hairs that aren't for all categories (and with no plausible hatless counterparts. Funny enough I have a de-hatted version of that hair for adults but not the kiddos)

Oh hey and Rahiti became a teen! So were other townie kids.

Since my traits for Rahiti and Cyprien were mostly left up to random, I got some interesting ones. Rahiti added Frugal and Good, and Cyprien added Neat. While Rahiti's two new traits didn't affect his life much (though I like having him clip coupons, not so much him turning off the lights), I got annoyed with Cyprien's neatness pretty fast.

He's a kid who cleans the shower instead of booby-trapping it? He will never get a girl now. As well as refusing to use unclean appliances. We are busy running a decadynasty!



Meanwhile the beautiful morning sun shone down through the window onto my boys. Check out my teenage heir! As you can tell, skilling up on athletic was still being delayed for him. He's one of the few teens who didn't need a ridiculous soul patch or baby's first moustache to look alright. I actually was looking forward to Rahiti never having facial hair ever (didn't seem like his thing) until he decided to have the most epic midlife crisis ever, but let's focus on the happier times before that...

It was my first time teaching a teen to drive and not having a Motive Mobile to make it easier. In fact all they had were occasional elixir store hauls (not as impressive as one may think) and the base-game truck. While Niles got a few wishes for Rahiti's wellbeing and that's great, Kaila was the only one who wanted to teach him how to drive. He had a longstanding wish to be best friends with his mum and that's so pure.

Usually I don't indulge childhood/teenage LTW assignments but I figured I'd give Rahiti Swimming in Cash and figure out an LTW for later on. For a while the household wasn't really making much big money, and moving in pollinators might have gave me $5,000 but if I married them out of the house (which I usually did) it would cost $5,000.

Alas I gave Rahiti his boring "temporary" LTW right after I bought out the elixir shop several times and then consigned my purchases (I wanted a Potent Cure Elixir or several). I kind of forgot that I did that.

Anyways trust that he completed it while on the swings after school.

Rahiti was having a nice and uncomplicated relationship with his parents, despite the odds, but while I was gathering up pollinator ideas again (don't worry I'd pull through) I figured that Cyprien's father could move in and give him a half-sibling with a poor townie woman.

So Cyprien and Maru were never close and my only screenshot of his face was of him dying...with sunglasses on. Doesn't matter because Cyprien looks just like Pearl. He had a son with homeless townie Nina Aolani.

But backing up a bit: the "Free Vacation" chance card came up and I decided to take a chance even though it's known to be buggy. It does have a bug, or maybe a feature, of cancelling all wishes for the adults who leave, which kind of stunk because everyone had a high-value one I wanted (Kaila had many, she wasn't Ambitious on paper but she was ambitious in her heart). But everyone returned unscathed at the very least.

Obviously Rahiti could be a terrible son for one little weekend.

Now once Rahiti had an A, I let him "meet classmates" or talk to them every day at school. I knew who existed but the people he knew was a little shorter. I'd let him test the waters with what I had though.

I bought the house a video game console. His closest friend at school was Antoinette Parrott, Clementine and Keaunu Kailani's kid (one of three daughters). Obviously I wasn't wowed over by her looks immediately, but townie offspring is townie offspring. I expected Rahiti to at least get a wish to go to prom with her, but alas no. In my one "full" (read: to teen) attempt before this, the AU Rahiti was close with the Grantham baby (the pre-made pregnancy in this town) and went to prom with them but whoever they were, they died via story progression long before this Rahiti could ever make a move.

The other guy was named Tate, I think. I also think he was a babysitter. Pearl never met him but was bestest friends with Cyprien's old babysitter, Dalma. We never see Tate again.

The only other original townie teen there was Greg Gonzalo again. He also had a little sister who was (and still is) alive, but was a child at the time. Gilberto and Tonya ended up in a really big house so I was looking towards the family (but being open-minded, the Parrotts had a nice house too). For the moment Greg just seemed like a way to get closer to sister Helene.

It wasn't really a roaring party. I swear that pizza was Rahiti's real favorite food because he always wanted to order it. The child there is Aja Parrott, Antoinette's sister and a playdate Cyprien invited over. She unfortunately died as a teen.

Plus it had to be a little wholesome, it was actually Cyprien's birthday too!

Cyprien ended up ditching his fun childhood style for glasses and golf shorts, but the sick 'fro could stay (for the record, Maru had cornrows as an adult). He didn't roll Loser but I always saw him as living in Rahiti's shadow so that one was all my fault. I figured he'd be the real loser at prom, have fewer friends, etc. And he did end up not really giving me any of my friend requirements that Rahiti and Pearl didn't make redundant, but...

...I don't remember much about prom but while Rahiti was Prom King (woo!) he went stag and didn't even get a surprise date. Some of the dialogue was about him getting rejected and into a fight (?!!). Obviously Cyprien didn't get much luck either but he had the excuse of being a new teen.

I figured he was a late bloomer is all.

Oh, and Kaila was an elder.

Her garden was small but getting quality produce, even if the flame fruits were slower to grow (I was getting 3rd gen excellent/outstanding/perfect tomatoes and wolfsbane within weeks). I let her keep a fun and tropical style for her last years. I had no idea how long Kaila would stick around for, everything was up in the air.

So final three shots: you know when I said that Cyprien wouldn't booby-trap the shower?

I finally let him indulge.

Anyways I wanted an in-between generation of townie kids, because townie aging is always inconsistent and I accepted that Rahiti could take a while to move out (spoilers: he did, 13 days to elder) and would risk his peers becoming too old to bear the next townie kids. Rahiti's generation had the Parrott and Gonzalo kids, and closer to Cyprien's age were the Allenders (Silas Allender and Ashley Star had two sons), Gabriela Tsang (Len Tsang and Rosalind Cruzita's only child), and his own half-brother Myron. That was only the surface of untapped potential.

But alas, I needed some more household slots.

And Niles heard me? Lord.

Next time we meet the new pollination squad and do they bring kids? Dogs? Genes I should have vetted better? That and so much more!

[Deklitch]

Lovely puppy, @Trip

I've played around in Sunlit Tides. From memory, there is an ID permitted (or is that the ID permitted lot) lot very close to the library. I took advantage of that in my practices of ID there to meet sims and combined it with the self employed careers so my sims didn't have to take hours travelling to get to work each day. I mean, just because I have to do so doesn't mean I have to inflict that on my sims, do I?

And I hear you about the hairstyles as well.

[Trip]

@Deklitch: I haven't remembered all the ID lots for the town (not my priority right now) but there are some big ones nearby enough. Thankfully either Rahiti or his kid has the chance to be closer to civilization, so to speak.

And I love him! His name is Churro.

[Trip]

Rahiti, Part Three

So...yeah...Niles died. Updates have a way of leaving off at points like that.

He actually got a life extending makeover at some point and I'm glad that he got to see Rahiti at least become a teenager. I made little effort in completing his LTW (Super Popular...I gave it to Pearl instead of course) and he got a tiny headstone to match his first wife's. No screenshots right now but he's buried with her in the town cemetery.

Ah yeah first there were some pictures I missed. Last shot of Rahiti and Niles together, with Niles helping with homework:

And him dancing with Kaila. They were starting to look really alike!

Once Niles and Maru died, the "what's next" stage of household pollination began. Unfortunately some of my top candidates were turned supernatural (so saved for later) or playing hard to get like Alonso Candelaria. I had to look up the block towards the Wahine household, but with a twist.

So story progression did only its most controversial moves for me in this save so far: turned everyone supernatural (mostly good), gave us some pet adoption scenarios (tempting but I ended up using the social worker for that), and killed like a third of my townie babies (hellllllll no). No one seemed to get partnered up beyond what they were set up with/what I did myself, and it took a bit for people to move houses and spice things up.

Except for Tenika Wahine, apparently. Yeah she starts out the game already engaged to Griffin Alto, but also starts living with her parents and younger siblings. But once I got around to Griffin, I discovered that Tenika was living with him. They didn't marry but they had a dog and everything. Unfortunately I split up the household to move in Griffin for a bit.

And the real shock? I couldn't marry Griffin to Tenika because of household slots (I think I had seven people in the house and Tenika was pregnant at the time) so he just got kicked out with his brother-in-law. But a day later maybe, he was back at his old house and living with Tenika again. Wild. True OTP material right there I guess.

Tenika hung out around the house a lot and was generally an alright friend to the family. Griffin was too, I have zero complaints about either of them. I was hooked on the Wahines, even if they're probably the most questionable looking family in the town (but cousins to Leilani Kahale too? Who is an absolute stunner when she grows up and probably the future Miss Sunlit Tides). It's nothing too bad but everyone has a real blocky face there.

Okay, I wasn't hooked, but Pearl had befriended Twikki Wahine at a park some day and again, not wasting time with guys who weren't cooperating.

Anyways Twikki grew up in the worst (best?) wardrobe, gained the Evil trait somewhere whilst growing up, and Pearl still wanted to kiss him (side note but Pearl wanted to kiss everyone...I didn't capture her brief romance with Kaila but that was a real thing that happened). I let her indulge but breaking it off was an absolute mess and their good friendship they had when he moved in didn't last. I've had Evil sims that still are friendly and Twikki was...alright I guess. Len Tsang was much worse because he gained the Evil trait as a mermaid and just did not get along with people.

His assigned mate was Helen Hoffman, which he had two surviving kids with: a boy and a girl. Helen is pretty in her own way I guess but she has big eyes and a tiny nose, definitely Twikki's opposite.

Idk. I usually try to avoid using two or more people from a family in these schemes this early in the game. No regrets though.

I stole Griffin and Tenika's dog for the time that Griffin was living in the house. They had a cute little brown girl named Pinky and Kaila loved her...but she loved Griffin and Tenika more and I felt bad for the thought of keeping her after kicking Griffin out. Pinky got me ready for adopting a dog for the family of their very own, but more on that later! Once I actually get him!

My intention for Rahiti was to throw an epic spouse party but the only three candidates I remember/captured were Antoinette, Helene (as a teen finally!), and the slightly-older Elosie Carnegie. For now I was okay with him still making absolutely zero moves towards anyone, with hardly even a wish to learn another's sign, but it was also getting a little worrying. No unfortunate prom dates? Come on, all my Waverlys had one of those, and they didn't even have teen townies that I actually liked most of the time. I liked Rahiti's friends and even their genes.

But I had to brace myself. I've been alluding to Rahiti's Athletic supermax for a while and that's what it was! My first generation was gonna be on easy mode and there is no shame behind that. He also got to clear whatever athlete-heavy career he wanted, and my spreadsheet was filled with "sports" for a bit. And while I cover some of his supermax later, it was easy. Without even doing any work as a teen, he still supermaxed it a couple days before his adult birthday and a lot of it was done at his job.

Oh no does that mean--

I am sorry, look at my cute little emergency services hero! I've never actually maxed the firefighter profession, even though I have put sims into it (or I have but forgot). So I pre-emptively placed a fire station down and actually not too far from the founding household, but I did consider a variety of decisions before going with my crazy idea.

It was the first day of his job that I realized a mistake may have been made. Let's set the scene: Rahiti's on the treadmill, busting through his cardio challenges first (as long as you do it correctly by running, "Fitness Nut" and "Marathon Runner" feed into each other). He just met random townie #593 who was one of his co-workers, and then the emergency alarm goes off. I'm so ready for firefighting!

The job cancels before he can even leave, end scene.

This happened for two days in a row and calling it quits was imminent.

Granted Rahiti made a lot of progress through athletic skilling, getting to level 4 or 5 of the profession just through that. But I was mad. I went to bed after making the note "get Rahiti an honorary degree and the Workaholic trait, he's gonna need it" for when I woke up. I was getting increasingly sure that he would just have to be thrown into the Sports career after all. Hardly fun, but official dynasties aren't always about what's fun.

But my heart couldn't take it yet and I would give Rahiti one more day at his dream job before going with Plan B.

This time, the alarm went off and he did too. It was a building disaster. It got him a decent amount of job credit. And funny enough, in spite of Sunlit Tides' layout, transport to emergencies never jeopardized Rahiti's job. All but one of his jobs were A's (one got a solid B rating for time). The bug turned out to be only with small fire emergencies, which Rahiti didn't have to rely on as soon as he was far enough up the career ladder to get bigger and better emergencies. It's a nice contrasting step up from being a Ghost Hunter (still possible but poor Tegan Waverly had more bugged jobs as they got bigger).

So my backup was never deployed until after Rahiti had maxed the profession, and by then it was just for ops and to keep him occupied.

The large fires were actually new and a whole lot of fun. I got to rescue people and everything. He used the axe. The jobs went seamlessly and it meant that I didn't have to max handiness, which is good. I don't have a skill list yet.

As you might notice, the cardio exercise was also slimming Rahiti down by a ton. That was my other reason for wanting to get the two cardio challenges out of the way first: give Rahiti more time to be himself and be a fat, jolly jellybean man (or miserable, but that's for later...)

I was happy to get those wide shots of him running too. He jogged to work every day and it took about an hour and a half, which by Sunlit Tides standards was fine by me (this isn't a terrible strategy for firefighters because the job starts pretty late in the day at 10:00 and to be honest, all my fires hit between 13-15:00, you have the time)

Yeah I was shocked that Rahiti wasn't stressed out 24/7 or at all really. While he wasn't the main man for throwing parties because, again, Pearl, I was getting antsy about the spouse situation and at least wanted to prepare for which house he was going to get into. We were going into full traditional courtship bashes except that it was in the shack Rahiti lived in and everyone ate salad and pizza.

Antoinette was still first on my list just because Rahiti had a close friendship with her that only continued to grow. She even got a makeover and honestly shocked me by looking pretty nice. It's all about framing those cheeks really.

My protocol with him was to ask for someone's sign (even if he didn't wish for it, it usually sets things in the right direction) and look for clues. I had a couple parties already and Rahiti was just not feeling it with any of my ladies. Funny enough, my first other plan for him was to look at the newest crop of townies, most of whom aged up to YA by the time Rahiti was done, so I wasn't being silly.

In order we had Hollie Wahine (Griffin and Tenika's daughter), Gabriela Tsang (mentioned before as Len and Rosalind Cruzita's daughter, and a witch!), and Cindy Hoffman (Twikki and Helen's daughter, held by a new YA Cyprien).

Oh, and there were the original townies who were turned supernatural early into the game. Both Ursula Lemuel and Theodora Jayne were still around, like they were trapped in amber. Penelope Pepper and Leilani Kahale were among them too and certainly somewhere on my list.

To my utter shock, Cyprien actually got a lady well before Rahiti could decide on anyone. Some loser he was! I invited vampire Mary-Sue Pleasant to some party and they immediately clicked, which shows that she and Daniel get along in zero universes of course (Daniel's a werewolf and still living with her). I was just happy that Cyprien got an attractive spouse that wasn't even on my radar. Now I absolved myself of any pressure to make Angela and Lilith Pleasant as townies. I refuse to ever write a character that has my legal name, lol.

To end this chapter, I thought that I had an unlikely mate in local fairy and original townie Maggie Strong. She has a cute and interesting face but Rahiti didn't agree. He didn't reciprocate fully. Like I swear, this was not like Rahiti was turning off the whole town. People found him attractive and all once he was an adult, if not at the same rate as Pearl (ladies, one at a time). I wasn't sure what wasn't clicking for him, or if Rahiti could even tell me.

He could. At that very party no less!

[Trip]

Rahiti, Part Four

Griffin Alto had four kids with Tenika Wahine. He actually had the Surrounded by Family LTW but I wasn't going to keep him around to complete it. This meant that he took Pinky the dog with him upon moving out and I was sad and dogless once more.

While this also gave Pearl an inside look at the service NPC household, more importantly I had a dog! He was a long-legged corgi named Tita and would follow Rahiti to his new home one day.

Tita actually got along with the whole household really well, but building up his relationship with Rahiti was crucial to me, mostly because Rahiti absolutely adored the little guy. Rahiti also still wore that male sarong, and would for as long as I had one for him (I don't have an elder conversion of it and I'm scared).

But yeah, we stopped off our last update with a cliffhanger about Rahiti's love life, didn't we? Backing up to the courtship party...

...Rahiti and I made a deal: if he wasn't going to make any romantic decisions and elect to never go on a date ever by his adult birthday, I was going to intervene and probably still with Antoinette Parrott. I think that condition made him very suddenly give me a very clear message.

I was gonna be philosophical here about where my own biases end and where the game's logic (lol) begin, and if player biases ever end at all. I might still be. So it's pretty common knowledge that sims, romantically, start out essentially as blank slates. And going into this, I was feeling uncomfortable painting that canvas, so to speak. So Rahiti and Cyprien were a test run of not initiating romance until they told me to, something I don't always do (there's a long history of me setting orientation for story purposes or using my own dice rolls)

It would be silly to say that my own biases as a gay person never ever can factor into what I think is undirected play because nothing's truly undirected unless you go full ISBI and never even peek at a sim's UI, wishes, and needs. But I will say that Rahiti is 100% gay and it came truly outta nowhere.

So I invited Greg Gonzalo to his party anyways because he at least seemed like a good best friend candidate and parties are just friend machines. I figured that if he wanted Rahiti, he had loads to chances to get him as a teen. But the moment Rahiti talked to him again, he wanted to kiss Greg for the first time, and that sort of delay was far more relatable to me.

Greg was easy to seduce. He loved Rahiti's firefighter muscles (that he didn't have, we were still in full cardio mode) and he was great to hug. They even watched the stars together in Rahiti's increasingly cluttered backyard. But he didn't get his party kiss. There was a lot going on and by that I mean the house was just packed with people and I wanted people to leave.

Rahiti falling for Greg didn't threaten to kill my dynasty but I had to ponder the implications.

At least by the time he got to the new Gonzalo house (which by the way was a huge mansion near the "center" of town) and actually cashed in his wish to kiss Greg, I had a pretty airtight plan for this to work. I won't be the person to tell you that gay heirs are easy, but it won't necessarily ruin your decadynasty. Hear me out.

So here are your new household requirements, whether you're familiar with them or not:

• Marry a townie living in a house in town, and move in with them instead of them moving in with you.
• Within 10 days, have a baby with someone living in your new townie home.
• Bask in your newfound freedom and get a tattoo I guess.

Every dynasty ruleset has been the subject to nitpicking and moaning and revision/clarification, hence why our rule threads are always so long. So there was an important extra added to the babymaking rule: "The spirit of the challenge is to move into a new townie household and have a child with someone in that household" and "it's a flat ban on bringing anyone else in for the purposes of having an heir." (god I miss you Rica) It's not clear in the rules unfortunately, but in my own defense, it was made well before I got any sort of moderator status and I assumed it was actually there for a while.

Pin that one to the to-do list...

Anyways, there's no good-faith interpretation that says that I cannot have an heir marry a same-sex spouse and have a baby with an opposite-sex sibling or roommate that was already there when you moved in. You totally can. It limits your potential spouses and may not always be possible (loveless unions for all then!), but it's a fun and legal scenario.

If you remember, Greg has a younger sister, Helene. Who's absolutely gorgeous and I think had already aged up to YA at that point. I was so happy that my biggest hurdle was waiting for Gilberto and Tonya to die, as they had already been household members unfortunately (Tonya was homeless so there was no way around it).

Rahiti made sure I could never deny him that love. He was too happy. His mood was utterly euphoric for the rest of being a young adult and probably because of Greg.

Now Rahiti's job got into a fairly good rhythm for a week or so, until whenever he topped it. He'd get to the station, exercise, realize all but one of his coworkers failed to show up, and get one of three emergencies: always building, large house fire, or the occasional bugged small house fire that would cancel, but it wouldn't matter.

In fact I was a little sad that Rahiti wouldn't get to enjoy his profession for a little longer because I was having fun. He had absolutely zero help in that regard...except for the new Workaholic trait I guess? I still gave him an honorary degree + trait when I was more uncertain about this. I've never bothered giving Workaholic to profession-bound sims because it felt like a waste of a good trait.

But Rahiti still had work to do so I tried to integrate it into his dates.

Greg wasn't very fit but training him enhanced their relationship...I guess. Even Rahiti had little actual desire to train him. He wanted woohoo. Not complaining, I like an heir who can be direct with me.

I forfeited the chance to get a "First WooHoo with Greg" wish after their wedding but honestly, the 2,500 points is nice but I don't like the implication of it. Plus, I couldn't accidentally click "Try for Baby" to early or anything even if I wanted to.

But you know who did want to?

My final phase of Gen 1 townie pollination was starting, first with Allistair Adams and his longtime romantic interest and fairy Penelope Pepper. Cyprien also met his half-brother Myron for the first time since after his teen birthday, and he was looking just like his own mum, Nina. He was earmarked for the first or second wave of Gen 2 babies.

Myron also found himself stuck in a burning house with only Rahiti to save him. Thankfully he lived. I don't let only children get sacrificed so easily!

And to end this chapter, Rahiti was lagging behind for ops, even though I thought I was doing everything right. He didn't start his skills until he was a young adult. And while he wasn't in a profession that gave ops, athletic has plenty of them. Sunlit Tides also has no combined rabbitholes, in case that still matters (not sure anymore). Or so I thought until he only got charisma and logic (?) ones I cashed in because I was desperate. I'm trying to save up travel days for when I actually need them but Rahiti had to go to Egypt...to finish the "Desert Air...Good?" op first (his first athletic op!) but also to pad out his list.

The jog around Al-Simhara was gorgeous, as usual, and it also helped complete the Fitness Nut skill challenge. He still had to spend days in the gym doing Body Builder, but the worst was behind me because Fitness Nut removed the drawback of getting fatigued. Due to the persistent cooking bug in Kaila's house, it was hard to keep Rahiti full and the fruit and dried food diet was not helping that either. But I didn't care if Rahiti was stinky (because the house did laundry, all he had to do was change outfits to feel clean again) and he was too pumped to be tired most of the time.

But he needed three more ops and my "use three travel ops per heir" voucher saved me.

Rahiti started on some part of the Morcucorp epic saga (I forgot that there was some kind of loose story in the WA worlds) and looked around many chests before it was even dinner time. Meanwhile the General Store merchant bugged out and Rahiti couldn't get a chest in Egypt and used another travel day in China instead, which worked fine. Pearl and Kaila worked on buying elixirs and growing a few specimens of perfect produce, which was good because I wanted a gardening supermax sooner rather than later. In a chest it could be available for future generations as long as someone could enter the house.

Back at home, finishing up the Desert Air jogging op let Rahiti both max his athletic skill AND the firefighter profession. Rahiti also met Martin Pepper so I had lots of tabs on his two fairy nieces (I think the one at their feet is Jan).

And about a day later, Kaila died. While she got a few life extensions as an adult, she also lived to 106 as an elder and I was getting worried it would be longer. Our loss was incredibly important to Rahiti's requirements but to be fair, I was waiting on Greg's parents to die even more.

Next time! It's Rahiti's turbulent mid-life crisis and mine as well.

[Trip]

Bahahahahaha, did one stupid mistake for my decadynasty. :') I'll recap up to failure since this is meant to be educational, and probably keep this thread because the Fitzpatricks will rise again. It was nice to get the feel of what a generation took (it wasn't).

[KRae]

Sorry you had problems. A quick question...is there a problem with leaving a chest out in the yard when you move?

[hazelnut]

Sorry you've run into problems already.  By the way, it's entirely possible to max the lifeguard profession without rescuing anyone, just by building the athletic and charisma skills, in case you want to try that next time.  Disabling some expansions definitely helps with the opportunities, if there are any you can bear to do without.

[Trip]

@KRae: not at all! A little better than keeping it in the basement and having to ask Pearl to get in the house (I didn't get the goodies I left behind but I had to do it before she passed lol) But yeah WA chests have been a valid strategy for ages now.

@hazelnut: Oh I was aware I could have. I just wanted more fun than watching peaceful beaches. For the reboot I am considering turning off Island Paradise, Showtime, and Seasons. Don't have any Showtime professions planned (not feeling like it today!), I can deal with the same climate because South Pacific islands tend to have similar temperatures year-round, and as much as I like the IP clothing and objects, I don't need a town full of mermaids either. I really wish they let us turn those off. I can imagine your base game decadynasty performance isn't the best ever seen but maybe a little better.

Uh, here's a post from a far-off time with zero hindsight. Enjoy!

Rahiti, Part Five

My heart's racing as I write this. Of all the top worst simming moments I've ever had, this isn't failure but it is gay heartbreak. Why the adjective there? Lemme explain.

Setting the scene for Rahiti's adult birthday...

So after maxing out the Firefighter profession, I put Rahiti in Professional Sports because I wanted a source of income for the next household that I also wouldn't have to micromanage. As far as I was concerned, Greg and his sister didn't have jobs. Meanwhile both of the Parrott sisters (Antoinette had a surviving younger sister named Becky) joined Cyprien as a teacher, so not everyone was slacking and they had no excuse. Did I forget to mention that he was a teacher? I did.

Anyways Rahiti actually gained one of the last household best friends through his job (Suzuki Hinata) so that was pretty neat. He finished his athletic supermax just fine too. He got a bonus op from work, so I could at least earmark one of the Egyptian ones as a free-for-all (in case it progresses another opportunity chain...I dunno dude)

And pretty shortly before his adult birthday, Rahiti and Greg went steady as boyfriends.

It was on the day of his Adult birthday that I also got the notice that Gilberto Gonzalo was not long for this world. Obviously I still had to wait for Greg's mum too, but getting halfway there was better than getting nowhere. I had a potent cure elixir pocketed so Rahiti could cure Helene before moving in, as she was but a local werewolf sniffing out adventure. I was feeling really good! I still had Pearl around to make any friends needed during the waiting period and she had many life-extensions at her disposal. Rahiti did all he needed to do.

What did this boy wish for anyways? Probably not for what happened next.

Greg probably wasn't at his party and I wasn't going to overthink it. It was at the bought and renovated Captain Jack's Beach and in the thick vegetation in and around it, it's hard to miss guests and guests who leave early like Greg easily could have.

Rahiti got a "Heartbroken" buff upon coming home. I wondered if maybe an older family friend died at the party or something...but that's not the right buff.

Did Greg cheat? Autonomously break up and I didn't notice? The phone at home is ringing and I hate it when it does that.

Gregario Gonzalo has died of starvation...

You pullin' me leg EA huh

I did not get a screenshot of the notification because I was in shock. I said some naughty words out loud and in my notes but here is the proof I have and can show you: his headstone in the mausoleum:

Rahiti might never love again. He was acting like it and I'd believe it. Should I also mention that his mid-life crisis hit? Sometimes sims of mine get only a few minor wishes and get over it. Rahiti didn't. He was in mourning and the fragility of life hit him as hard as it could hit any 40-something.

The only upsides to his mid-life crisis were the wish values (nice) and confirming that Rahiti was fully gay and not just Greg-sexual. In a beautiful full-circle ironic twist, he wanted to flirt with Ricardo Gregario (dat name), Pearl's ex! She didn't hear of this scenario but Ricky here was more than happy to flirt. He'd be a great rebound partner if he and Suzuki lived with another woman. But they didn't. I even checked.

First, let's list all of Rahiti's mid-life crisis changes that I remember:

• Get a tattoo (yeah sure thing there kid)
• Plan a new wardrobe
• Buy a $10,000+ car
• Grow a beard
• Get more muscular...twice
• Move out (NOT YET)

So I was kind of out of options for Rahiti's gay love life, it seemed. There weren't too many guys in town with sisters, it began and ended with Greg and Helene.

Loveless unions for all, I said. I mean, Rahiti had backup wives everywhere, and a kind watcher who wouldn't sabotage those plans before Greg's death at all. Like our old friend Antoinette Parrott...

...hmmm...

Gabriela Tsang?

Oh no, that's her own kid.

Elosie Carnegie? Katherine Grantham? Also knocked up and taken.

Jesus, Trip.

So the final wave of Gen 1 pollinating was unfortunately planned on all of Rahiti's other potential spouses once Greg and Helene felt like a done deal. In my defense, young adults almost never are victims to Story Progression in my games. The only other one I lost at that age in this file was Edmund Carnegie, and nothing of value was lost, his sister had all the good looks anyways. Anyways our low quality elder men working boys were Alonso Candelaria and original mailman (!!) Papaya Cruz. They both got two girls each: Antoinette and Katherine for Papaya, and Elosie and Gabriela for Alonso. Gabs was the daughter of Alonso's ex-girlfriend, just for reference. He starts off as a filthy cheater though, so he really would be that scummy.

I wanted to avoid giving two or more women to a pollinator but in this case, I wasn't invested in too many of those lines (except for the Parrotts I suppose) and whoever can't be used can go to marry spares and stuff.

But in hindsight, Rahiti should have asked Antoinette for a helping hand first.

For a bit all hope seemed lost, but there were four childless, female, supernatural original townies saved for a rainy day:

• Ursula Lemuel, turned into a fairy.
• Theodora Jayne (who you might have known as a beauty pageant contestant in Ben Oliver, those were the days man), turned into a vampire.
• Leilani Kahale, turned into a vampire.
• Maggie Strong, turned into a fairy.

All four were solid choices, and in all cases, my last two potent cure elixirs would be of use in any of the scenarios. Ursula and Theodora lived together, and I would have wanted both of them on hand. Both Leilani and Maggie lived with one supernatural parent as well, with Leilani's mum Alana and Maggie's dad Julian (both of them were fairies). Both would have uses I suppose, or at least create in-law drama.

I whittled it down to the last two. Maggie, for being the first woman to autonomously flirt with Rahiti, and Leilani because she had a big, gorgeous house to match her big, gorgeous nose. (Not to knock Maggie's situation, her house was fine and she was cute as hell) I wondered if Rahiti would give me a sign towards either of them.

But wait, why not Helene? Aside from her mum not being dead, she was a pretty prime candidate, all alone in her big house.

Sure, yeah, love Helene. But we wanted Greg back.

Like, as in back from the dead.

As not an expert or a particularly successful person, but as someone who completed an immortal dynasty, I knew my ambrosia game was on-point. Kaila had a life fruit plant in her garden. Someone could learn to fish, and someone could learn to cook and I could streamline that skilling down in many ways. But my ambitions are not the point. The point is that Greg and Helene lived together, and resurrecting him would technically be introducing a "moved out" person back to the household.

I know it sounds silly and not at all like how a good dynasty challenge coordinator should act, but this is my reservation: Helene wasn't just Ms. "I just moved here" McCloneFace with me having zero background knowledge on her household history. I knew what happened in the Gonzalo household because the parents lived with us (however briefly), and Rahiti was friends with Greg since childhood. There's no reasonable doubt of them being Schrodinger's Townies.

That being said, this ruling is only for myself because no one's gonna be dumb enough to try this.

Uh, anyways, Rahiti had a very well-deserved drink.

Leilani was his first "date" and he was still heartbroken over Greg. They talked and danced though and had a swell, completely platonic time. He learned Lei's sign, I forget if they were compatible or not, but it didn't really matter to Rahiti. He liked his new friend and that was about it.

I got zero shots of his very similar outing with Maggie because it hit the same beats. Good time, no feelings, not even friendly wishes I could interpret as "Rahiti trusts her enough to deal with this weird life he's signing up for". He gave her a makeover though (Leilani was done a lot earlier).

It was getting frustrating. I even repeated the experiment only for no real pointers. I was exhausted. I put my dog to bed, opened Google's coin flipper (you think I'm joking?) and said heads for Maggie, tails for Leilani. Got tails. Time for bed myself.

After setting my alarm I remembered one actual benefit that Maggie had that Leilani never would and I changed my mind completely.

It's not that Maggie is skilled in anything particularly great, especially since she starts out as a teen. She has no weird coveted gene, no cool basement to her house, no fun powers since I'll have to cure her. She's actually pretty unremarkable besides getting an unlikely place in the Spouse Races (tm) just by being in the right place at the right time.

He even begged Maggie to forgive him for what he must yabba dabba doo...

Julian, her dad, did not like the idea either. But Rahiti liked him. Not as much as he loved Greg...or Ricardo even...but he had just bought a Cherry Casanova and was on the prowl.

Yes I legitimately thought this was a good idea. And I consulted the rules so the law could enable me too. Let's get your concerns outta the way first: yeah you can't start your decadynasty in a multi-generational house, but your spouse targeted parent of firstborn of whatever sort in the household you're moving into? They can be living with their parents, so long as they weren't a part of your active household before. This has been ruled on many times. Obviously I wasn't hammering the point home about Greg's parents for no reason. But I had never controlled Julian. I barely cared about him before this.

There's no need to necessarily marry your next heir's parent. As long as the circumstances allow for it, if they are already living with someone else you could have a child with, then go bananas. I've already brought this up. The rules also always allowed for the rare situation where a townie will ask your sim to move in with them (fun fact but Leilani actually tried this! I said no though). So the expectation for decadynasty marriage isn't about spousal faithfulness one bit. It's a consequence of the game's own limited mechanics for joining another household without Edit Town.

Those two conditions say there's nothing technically wrong with marrying one guy but having your next heir with his childless adult daughter who lives with him. This even gets an official ruling from me of it being okay...weirdo.

Though I had higher expectations for this manuver before I actually moved households. Saving that for Gen 2 though!

Julian was being resistant for a while and probably knew that this was a horrible idea...especially because it meant that his prospective new husband had to have a baby with his daughter. I mean, in our defense, Maggie has been around for way longer than Rahiti and this wasn't going to be any normal sort of family dynamic. She starts off close enough to young adulthood that you can use her as a founding spouse (provided you start with someone else).

I may never know what magic Rahiti pulled to finally woo Julian, but he pulled it my dudes.

Rahiti and Julian had a proposal with a view about a day later, with the same speed his parents had a generation before. He was also getting close to as old and haggard as Kaila was, so I had to act fast!

And by acting fast, I mean Julian ditched him on the first attempt at their wedding. I was trying to make sure Maggie was in attendance so I could cure her too, but she had failed to show up and Julian left the lot. So rude.

In fact Cyprien married before Rahiti did. As it turned out, he was holding onto no friends that Rahiti and Pearl were not already. I perhaps was anticipating this because I held onto wishes to get married AND to marry Mary-Sue for ages, and his mid-life crisis was in full swing and I wasn't ready for another one right after Rahiti's.

I neglected to show Daniel Pleasant as their only witness but I can confirm that the cruel, cruel irony was with us all that day.

Rahiti's collection was complete (didn't feel like having to place his firefighter rewards anywhere in the new home)...

...and he didn't get the big beach wedding I planned for him because I was not going to risk Julian running away again. He aged up after getting cured, but that was fine. And what mattered the most is that Rahiti's new stepdaughter was there! Or babymomma. This was gonna continue to be awful.

We took Tita with us and he had a birthday right after the ceremony.

And Rahiti prepared for yet another wild ride (Maggie lived don't worry).

[Trip]

While it doesn't matter now, here's Rahiti's stats and accomplishments:

Home: 6 Silent Shores
Born on: Day 6 to Kaila and Niles Fitzpatrick
Honor Roll: Child & Teen
NPC Friends: Rachelle Jeffrey (Acrobat), Kristine Kinsey (Tattoo Artist), Antoinette Brothers (Maid), Carissa Parrott (Firefighter), Johanna Leach (Repairwoman), Joann Edmondson (Paparazzi), Cherie Pie (Party Dancer), Dalma Yu (Babysitter), Darin Kaplan (Newspaper Deliverer), Gena Hays (Elixir Store Consignment Specialist)
Best Friends: Suzuki Hinata, Alonso Candelaria, Antoinette Parrott, Leilani Kahale, Penelope Pepper, Alfonzo O'Brien, Elosie Carnegie, Ethel Carnegie, Maggie Strong, Julian Strong
Career: Firefighter
Supermax: Athletic
BlackOps: Free Game, Work/School Learning Project, Push It!, Settle an argument, Fixing the Books, Jog Everywhere, Stadium Cleanup, An Introductory Test*, Agent of Morcucorp*, Desert Air...Good?
Building: Riku's Luau Diner
Property: Captain Jack's Beach
Tombstone: Kaila Fitzpatrick (Medium)
Collection: Metals, $11,326
Adult? Yes!

[Trip]

Final update until I collect my things and start over...if nothing else I had plenty of strategical regrets that I get a "one do-over free" coupon on. Life will be okay! Rahiti's life may come to a close but his saves live on in a hard drive. Maybe I'll even bring back Greg for him.

Palmyra (Technically)

Our scary heiress, vampirized and sealing my fate...just kidding! It's Cyprien and Mary-Sue's daughter Angelina. She got so close to canon and even had red hair like Daniel (wanna explain that one to me Mary??)

It had nothing to do with vampires. Moving on...

To my relief, Maggie and Julian had a fine little two-story house and I could even make three bedrooms out of it (the super-big bathroom upstairs got downsized). While Rahiti was an only child, I was hoping for twins to get my sibling itch out of the way, and so Rahiti and Maggie could get this over with ASAP.

I delayed on heir-making for a couple days for...reasons...but maybe so I don't dive into it immediately. Let's start with the good stuff!

The kitchen wasn't huge, but it had a stove that worked. Granted, using a stove for pure skilling is a bit of a waste when you can read cooking skill books at the library. Am I talking about my heiress? No, I never decided on her supermax (I was thinking fishing but who knows). This was for ambrosia purposes. I assigned Maggie to cooking, since she'd have a lot of time off thanks to the baby. Julian already had some fishing skill and the angler trait to boot.

The furthest I got to in that regard was Julian having a lot of angelfish for bait, and Maggie getting to Level 5 or 6 of cooking. To be fair to her though, she started from absolutely nothing.

I was so overwhelmed with new house stuff that Rahiti and Julian didn't even get a wedding night celebration. Although he had been with Greg before, Rahiti did pop the wish to WooHoo with Julian for the first time. And I wanted it to happen before he did anything with Maggie.

And Tita watched? Why are sim dogs all dogs like this with privacy.

But I love dogs. Tita should have been enough, but he was an elder and after losing my own elderly dog earlier this year, I know what getting a new puppy can do to relieve it. I didn't really have that option because my new boi Churro was unknown to me and barely taking his first steps when Bud passed, but through the power of generated adoptable dogs, Rahiti and Julian could have a sweet pupper before losing Tita.

I don't know what breed Teina was and he didn't even age up before I stopped, so his size is unknown too, but he was absolutely adorable and bouncy!

It was Day 2 or 3 and I still hadn't gotten my heir plans into motion. I guess I needed a townie offspring party first.

Pedro Star elluded Rahiti throughout their lives even though they were pretty close in age. He was Silas Allender and Ashley Star's kid but somehow didn't gain his dad's last name even after they married.

And while Jan Adams (Allistair Adams and Penelope Pepper's daughter) was too young to be a pollination candidate right now but too old to be an immediate spousal choice, I had my eye on her.

I did a few makeovers at the party (Pedro was looking nice with some hair!) but I realized that I wanted my heir and I wanted it now. I don't know how much of a secret I've made of my favorite "try for baby" shortcut but here it is: you know how you can tour some rabbitholes? The theatre, City Hall, and the science lab are all eligible for this, and I think the fortune teller's wagon might be too (didn't have it in town to check). You can also tour with another person or with a group. If you click on the rabbithole building again for interactions while still actively touring it, you might get the option to "Make Out" with someone touring with you. It increases friendship...actually by a lot...and I think it does open up some more romantic options, but it doesn't make your sim and the other one romantic interests. It does not register as cheating for normal sims (I don't count celebrities as normal or desirable)

And yes, after you make out with a sim, you can tour again with them and WooHoo or Try for Baby, no romantic strings attached. Dead serious. It works as well as trying in a bed, but without the hassle. There are only a few caveats because sims won't tour when tired, hungry, or needing to go to the bathroom, while they might woohoo the normal way regardless of motive failure. (Funny enough this is the first dynasty attempt where I really took advantage of it for everyone. Most Waverly townie babies were conceived in a bed) And the other caveat was that it wasn't working for Rahiti and Maggie. The only sim they could make out with was Twikki Wahine, who I guess was seeing a movie (yeah I went for it though, lol)

I was stumped as to why. It wasn't a household space issue because the only household members were Rahiti, Julian, and Maggie (and the dogs). They couldn't even make out. And there was no way it was because Rahiti was listed as Maggie's stepfather...

Except yeah, it totally was.

Actually I gotta hand it to EA for having the foresight to squash any stepparent/adult stepchild relationships because that's usually pretty gross. It's a little less gross for Rahiti because her former fairy aging aside, she was nearly old enough to be his mum, but still, I'd rather be temporarily stopped than letting grosser stuff slip through the cracks.

And did you know that TS4 sometimes allows stepparents and adult stepchildren to be romantic? (ACCORDING TO HEARSAY FROM FRIENDS) Glad you're on this board huh. This is probably why I wasn't thinking of it not working when I decided on Rahiti's new household.

Now this would clear up if I just had Rahiti and Julian divorce. This also isn't where I failed so yeah, I totally had them divorce. Julian was busy with something so I went to Rahiti's relationship panel and chose to send Julian a break-up text.

I've heard of the break-up texts being buggy so please proceed at your own risk but the break-up itself results in just a four-hour bad moodlet for the affected party, though it also tanks any friendship you had with them. With a Potent Friendship Elixir, this can be rectified but I could deal with Rahiti living with his ex. It was better to rip off the bandaid now than to spring it on him once we resurrected Greg, am I right guys?

And fellas, it worked.

Just not for Julian.

I hadn't really gotten a good shot of Maggie's face but I was glad to have her as a babymomma for Rahiti. I'm not surprised she was turned into a fairy because she looks like a cute, plump pixie from the start.

Because Leilani had zero hard feelings about being booted from the dynasty (for now) for petty, gay reasons, she and Maggie made for fast friends. Maggie questioned her and I want to assume that she snitched on her criminal mother, and since the game made Leilani a doctor, Maggie could find out what kind of child she was having.

I wanted boy-girl twins ok. I know you can get that from random chance and have been able to for years, but I wanted to guarantee it. I had a fun themed name pair for them and everything. My "mother's culture" theme went out the window because Maggie left me with zero clues, being the kid of a single dad who looks nothing like her. But as the title says, Palmyra was my girl's name. And Jarvis for my boy. After the US territories of Palmyra Atoll and Jarvis Island, which are mingled with islands owned by the Pacific nation of Kiribati. No one lives on either of them for the record.

Since I was blaring kids' music and bought Fertility Treatments for both Maggie and Rahiti, I moved in our pollinators to prevent triplets because I was not dealing with that. We got Pedro Star, Myron Aolani, and Kiwi Hale. Although I didn't get to the point of them having kids, I picked out mates for them already. Pedro would get Leilani Kahale, Myron would get Hollie Wahine, and Kiwi would get Helene Gonzalo. Myron and Kiwi actually had a successful try for baby with their ladies but it didn't really go anywhere.

And none of them cared that Maggie was in labor.

So I got my girl Palmyra and a wish fulfilled for Maggie, but the twin I expected never came. I'm going to assume that Jarvis was absorbed in the womb and that's that! Rahiti and Maggie tried for another (he had since reconciled with Julian and was his romantic interest again, but that was not enough to stop him from having another kid with Maggie) but that pregnancy didn't progress to much either.

But hey, everything's sounding legal so far, if a little weird. If being weird would fail a dynasty, then I wouldn't have stuck around here. There wasn't really much to fail with anyways with just an infant heir. No honor roll for Palmyra yet (Maggie was just a point away from having enough logic to tutor her, I had my plans~), no more obligations for Rahiti. Stuff like resurrecting Greg was just a fun idea to do whenever, because the dynasty would go on without Rahiti having his soulmate, though my heart wouldn't. Palmyra was very well cared for by the whole household, so no risk of a social worker visit. In terms of bugs, I was doing alright but on the lookout for aging bugs (one struck the household when Rahiti was a teen but I got it fixed).

I wish I could say that it was out of my hands but it was not.

So the dynasty closes off with Kiwi. He and Helene were easy lovers and he even had a baby on the way. To my shock, Helene asked him to move in (not even two weeks after Rahiti got asked the same question!). Since she was pregnant, I shrugged and went for it this time. This is fine. In essence it's the same as moving out household members via marriage while keeping control of the real dynasty household.

Ah you might see where this is going...

A word to the decadynasty players of 2019 (or any dynasty players really): the default option for when a household member is invited to move in with another townie is to make the default family the townie's household. Not yours. And yes, I went past two different screens to confirm yeah you're gonna be playing with Helene's household now, you sure about that one? and still chose to do it. It was a long day of play for me and I only realized my mistake when it was too late.

Now it sounds like a minor thing that could be forgiven in the eyes of a merciful Dynasty Challenge Coordinator but I put my situation in the shoes of another and asked myself what I would say? Would I be nice? Am I ever nice?

I failed because I was dumb. And because I hold myself to the same standard I hold everyone here to.

Still gonna use Kiwi as a pollinator next time though, no regrets.


I might age up Palmyra just to see how she looked when I get home. Otherwise, watch this space for any more attempts.