The Castaneda Immortal Dynasty Challenge

[saltiesophie]

Hello and welcome to the Castaneda Immortal Dynasty Challenge! I've read Pam's Dreamweaver Dynasty challenge annually since she's posted it and I've finally decided to give it a try, how many years later? I don't think it'll ever reach the levels of amazing that her story did, but I figured that I would share my challenge with the world as well. I'm following the normal challenge rules, though I may miss a rule here or there as it is my first time ever attempting it. I've made sure to get about 3 generations in as I was worried that I would make a mistake and end my dynasty early, and it did get close! But it's okay, because I managed to work it out! So without further ado, here goes.

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Here is the founder of the challenge, Theresa Castaneda. Her traits are Nurturing, Good Cook, Hopeless Romantic, Loves the Outdoors, and Angler. Her favorite music is Pop music, her favorite color is pink, and her favorite food is fruit parfait. Her LTW is to reach the top of the culinary career, so I'm planning on having her join the career as soon as possible. But first, I'm planning on having her look for love asap. After all, coming to a new town all alone, with only a giant lot of grass for company, has to suck.

I was trying to find someone that wasn't already married or Gobias Khoffi. I couldn't find any autogenerated townies, but I did happen to see Christopher Steel (of course). Since they share the Angler trait (and I remember just how cute his kids are), I figured Theresa would chase after him.

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They hit it off almost right away. However, I waited to get them hitched and move him in until she had some more cooking skill under her belt. He lived alone in a house, so Theresa stayed the night for a couple of days until she was about level 3 in the culinary career and had level 5 cooking. Christopher didn't seem to mind and would wake up to let her into the house at the end of her shift. Eventually, Theresa proposed to him in the kitchen (while he was still in his cowprint pjs), and they got married on the spot. Nothing more romantic than the kitchen floor!

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While they got settled in within the field of grass, I gave them a bit more shelter than they initially had. Which was none. They quickly got used to living in such a cramped house and decided to have their first kid. Christopher seemed like he would be the best option of who to stay home with the kid. While waiting for his child to be born, he went fishing every day to get that skill up. When he came into the household, he was barely even level 2. By the time the kid was born, however, he was already level 6 and working on nabbing a bunch of Angelfish bait.

I was hoping for a girl, but my game had other ideas because they were blessed with a beautiful baby boy. His name is Altair Castaneda. I'm not sure why I choise Altair, and there is not really a naming convention, but it seems to fit. He was born with the Good Sense of Humor and Loves the Outdoors traits with his favorites being Songwriter Music, Vegetarian Dim Sum as his favored meal, and the color blue.  He was very loved as a baby, and it seemed like no time at all until he was a toddler.

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Altair learned his skills quickly with Christopher staying home with him, and Theresa managed to get a couple more levels of her career under her belt along with befriending Agnes Crumplebottom and Jared Frio. Jared keeps sending her love mail, and I'm glad that Christopher doesn't seem to get jealous when he checks the mail. Other than sending way too many letters, Jared doesn't autonomously flirt with her or anything, which is good.

Before I end the first post, I'm going to share what their house looks with Altair close to aging up to child. It went from a little shack barely worth picturing to an honest abode. I wanted the siding outside to be blue and the most important thing to me was the kitchen. After all, a master chef must have a master kitchen asap.

This was the shack:
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This is the slightly larger shack:
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The next post will start Altair's child days. Thanks for reading all the way through! I'm having a lot of fun with this challenge.  ;D

[saltiesophie]

I'm back today with another post. I'm just going to get started right now - It was Altair's birthday and his mom got to bring him to the cake in their new kitchen.

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He grew up to be a really cute kid. His next trait was hydrophobic, which was a random trait. I think it makes it more interesting anyways, as I expect him to do the fishing and gardening, so he will be around water often. The first thing he did as a child was hunt for easter eggs at the park. I was hoping he would find some kids to make friends with, but there wasn't anyone his age around. Oh well!

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Quickly after it was Altair's birthday, Theresa had her elder birthday. I don't think I had a birthday party for her adult birthday as she didn't have very many friends at that point. It was kind of sad. But, a lot of people showed up for her today! She had a lovely birthday party and was able to have her ambrosia right away. All of her boxes were checked (though Agnes Crumplebottom seemed like she was gonna drop at any moment).

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Altair's teen birthday came in no time at all. He had done about 3 opportunities as a kid, mostly the school ones. He had a field trip and had gotten a participation trophy for doing scouts. Since he couldn't level his gardening, he rolled a lot of baking wants. So, every day he would make a bunch of  baked goods and try to sell them. He didn't have much luck. For some reason, no one would buy his stuff at the park, and at home they'd get stuck in a leaving loop.

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I don't have very many good pictures of him as a teenager. He spent most of his time learning to garden (since he had just gotten the green thumb trait) and looking around for a suitable girl to go to prom with. Sadly, he wasn't able to woo any girl for prom, but he did meet a lot of options for when he aged up to young adult. I've included a picture of him as a teen blowing out his candles, but I'll show the party and future wedding in the next post.

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[CeresIn]

Another dynasty to read. Very good start!!

[saltiesophie]

Another dynasty to read. Very good start!!

Thank you very much, I'm having a blast so far!

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It was time for Altair's birthday party and Theresa invited everyone she could to be there. This included Altair's two friends and most of her coworkers. They all seemed to have a nice time, even though Altair wished more friends could have been there. Here's a picture of the parents dancing during the party.

Altair had a lot of people cheering him on as he aged up to young adult. One of the people at his party immediately let him know that she found him attractive. Since the only other girls that seemed potentially suitable had already aged up to adult or hated children, she seemed like the best option.

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She seemed really sweet at first. Her name is Sha Sha. I can't remember what her maiden name is. I had her come over to meet the parents, and it turns out Sha Sha isn't sweet at all. Here are some of her gremlin moments. I really don't know why she decided to do all of this on her own.

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Well.... Too late to turn back! Might as well tie the knot. I had him propose to her and they set up a wedding. It turned out really cute. I was pretty annoyed that no one decided to sit in the chairs I set out though.

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Even a gremlin gets to look pretty on her wedding day.

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And a kiss to tie the knot!

[Beks]

A new immortal dynasty! How exciting! It's always fun to see another Sunset Valley story with all the old favorite townies running around. Sha Sha is beautiful and I can't wait to see the full extent of her gremlin ways. "Sha Sha the Gremlin" has a pretty funny ring to it.

[saltiesophie]

A new immortal dynasty! How exciting! It's always fun to see another Sunset Valley story with all the old favorite townies running around. Sha Sha is beautiful and I can't wait to see the full extent of her gremlin ways. "Sha Sha the Gremlin" has a pretty funny ring to it.

She is super beautiful, and I looked again, her dad is Jared Frio and Claire Ursine. I guess they just make pretty babies. For some reason on the family tree, Christopher Steel and my founder are only seen as dating. Weird.

After trying for a baby with her new husband, she proceeded to steal the gaming console from his mother. Theresa is just not having a great time with this new girl. You can just see the disappointment in her eyes. Way to choose a good one, Altair.

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She went into labor in what felt like only a day, and she had twins! The firstborn was Angelique Castaneda and the second was Alyanna Castaneda. As firstborn, Angelique will be the heir. Her traits are good and excitable with her favorites being indie music, cheesesteak, and pink. Alyanna was born with the insane and artistic traits. Her favorites are roots, vegetarian lobster thermador, and turquoise. On her way home with Angelique, Sha Sha decided to take a very.... Interesting route.

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Everyone adores the new nooboos! I found a really cute store item and the sims love to autonomously put the babies in it. It's really cute to watch them play peekaboo with the nooboos in the swing. Sha Sha keeps setting the speed to high which hurts their tummy, though. It's getting pretty annoying.

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They also got their own joint bedroom now. I think it came out super cute. I'm going to keep this as their bedroom until they are teens, most likely. After that, I might keep the bedroom how it is until the next kid comes around.

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Grandma Theresa loves both of them, but she has seemed to be very attached to the next  heir. The look on her face as she snuggles Angelique just filled my heart.

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Here is a bonus picture of Alyanna portraying her.... insanity? I don't know why this happened, but it sure is creepy.

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Next post will be the nooboos aging up into the most adorable toddlers ever. Thanks for reading!

[saltiesophie]

Okay, so Angelique and Alyanna have aged up. Here's a photo of them each. The first one pictured is Angelique. I thought that the little mohawk would be something that Sha Sha would put on her kid. Alyanna just has a bit of a bowl cut right now, but I don't think she minds.

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Sha Sha is still as crazy as ever. She wakes her kids up with megaphones and turns on stereos autonomously in rooms where sims are sleeping before going to the next room and doing the same thing. It just feels like the Sims AI decided to make her do everything under the 'butthole' category. 

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Regardless, she still can be helpful sometimes. The women took the kids to the park while the guys fished and taught them some valuable life skills. This is at the lake across from their house. Theresa had bought it and leveled it up all the way, so I put a cute little children's park since that seems like it'd be useful.

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Theresa, Christopher, and Altair decided to take a trip to Shang Simla and Sha Sha agreed to watch the kids. Christopher wanted to be able to go travel before it was his time to pass. Here's Christopher fishing with is son and boasting about his grandkids to Theresa. I think he just really missed them while traveling. Maybe he was worried Sha Sha would forget to feed them or something. All she really does nowadays is play on the trampoline.

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Christopher is such a good grandfather.

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Before the twins aged up, (mainly) Theresa and Christopher managed to teach them all the skills that they'd need. Before their party, Sha Sha spent some quality time with Angelique. It was a sunny day, so she took her out in the stroller. The property is in the back again. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

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[fansidoodle]

This is such a fun story. I'm happy there's another dynasty story. Wishing you luck! 

[saltiesophie]

I'm back with another update! Sorry if people have been looking, my district just got off spring break so it was back to work for me. 

So, the twins had their birthday in the middle of the night. Quite a bit friends came to see them age up. However, something weird happened...

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Their... lips(?) were in their chin. No matter what I did to try to fix it, it didn't work, so I had to give them minor facial surgery. I checked in CAS and they would've aged up with it, so I fixed it as much as possible. Here they are after the fix.

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Angelique aged up with the Disciplined trait, so she currently has: Disciplined, Excitable, and Good. Her sister, Alyanna, aged up and currently has the INnsane, Neat, and Artistic traits. For some reason, her insane trait just makes her that more adorable. Here she is in the victorian dress she insists on wearing 24/7, being sassy to her imaginary friend.

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There wasn't much for Angelique to work on as a child since I want her to supermax the martial arts skill, so I had her work on relationships and schoolwork instead. I think I tried to put her into ballet, but for the majority of her elementary school years, they had snow days. I was *that* close to not choosing her next trait.

Here's Alyanna bonding with her grandpa. Just look at that face!

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Here's them during a family fishing trip.

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Sadly, it was soon Christopher's time. He went to bed with Theresa only to get up and have a visit with the grim reaper as she slept.

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They made a gravesite in the fishing lot he frequented.

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The girls took it the hardest after Theresa, but they did their best to distract themselves.

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Rest in peace, Christopher. You were a good fisherman, father, and grandfather.

[saltiesophie]

After Christopher's death, Altair and his wife aged up to Adult. Altair has been doing very well so far. He's maxed out his career, supermaxed his Gardening skill, has six best friends, and all the lots have been bought for him. The only thing he needs to work on is to finish 3 more opportunities and to keep his best friends up.

Angelique's and Alyanna's childhood seemed to just fly by. They spent the majority of their childhood during winter, so they missed a lot of school. This meant that Alyanna wasn't able to choose her trait. She gained the technophobe trait. Angelique gained the athletic trait. Angelique went first and after a quick outfit change, came out super cute!

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I got a picture of Alyanna as a teen as well. I decided to make her a bit more artsy than her sister.

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As a birthday gift, Altair took his two girls to Shang Simla, mostly to get Angelique a head start on her main skill: Martial Arts. Here's some cool pictures of her working hard at it.

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When they came back, they only had one day of peace and quiet before a burglar decided to come. Thankfully, I remembered to put an alarm, but the police officer failed to defeat him. Everysim was pretty annoyed by that.

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After a couple days, Angelique found a boy to bring to prom. His name is Rahsaan Harvey, and all I know is that he is childish and over-emotional. Angelique didn't seem to care, and promptly went steady with him. Alyanna was asked to go to prom with a girl named Andria Alford. She's one of Angelique's best friends.

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During Prom, Alyanna was asked to go stead with Andria, which she said yes to. They're VERY cute together, but sadly, it won't be able to go anywhere further than dating. Angelique was made prom queen but Rahsaan didn't make prom king. At least, the crown wasn't in his inventory when he moved in later. Maybe it's because he had aged up a couple of days before prom. I'm surprised he was allowed to go in the first place as a young adult. Here's their height difference before prom started.

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The rest of the family had been starting to get kind of bored, so they all went together to the movies and dinner. While there, one of Theresa's old friends died in the front. Sadly, I was in my irl kitchen, so I missed the picture.

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Eventually, the twins' birthdays came and Angelique chose her first LTW: Legendary Host. She invited all her friends and managed to have the Sims 3 equivalent of a roof raiser. Here's a nice picture of the party.

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So far, Angelique has level 6 Martial Arts skill and level 3 Athletic skill, a love interest, and about 4 good friends (that can count towards the score). Alyanna will be the designated painter, and is able to make portraits now. I don't really have an easy time making portraits as it locks the camera in a weird way, so I let her insane trait come out a bit more using paint still life. Some... interesting portraits have come out from it, which I kind of like.

Angeliques traits now that she is an adult are: adventurous, disciplined, excitable, good, and disciplined. Alyanna's traits got bugged, so she only has 4 traits: insane, technophobe, neat, artistic.

[Trip]

Nice start! From the challenge team standpoint, we let players cheat a trait onto a sim if it was dropped during aging up, considering how common it is (and 14 years later we NEVER figured out whY!)

[saltiesophie]

Nice start! From the challenge team standpoint, we let players cheat a trait onto a sim if it was dropped during aging up, considering how common it is (and 14 years later we NEVER figured out whY!)

Oh, I didnt know that! She's almost an elder now, so I might just roll with it. Though, that will be useful to know next time.  Thanks for replying to my challenge story!

[saltiesophie]

Hello! I've been gone a while, but here I am, back! I got married, moved across the US, and just moved into my new apartment. So, understandably, I had to take quite a large hiatus. I'm just glad my save data wasn't somehow lost during the move. Just like my favorite soup ladle... 

So, last time, Angelique and Alyanna had their birthday party and became young adults. What I hadn't put up before my hiatus was Angelique marrying Rahsaan. Here's the album time!
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Her wedding went pretty well - meaning no elder died during it! She proposed to him the next day after she aged up. It was a beautiful wedding with all of the dressings. I especially like the picture of her grandmother and Angelique cutting the wedding cake.

The day before the wedding, Angelique and Rahsaan has gotten busy and she promptly got pregnant. I can't quite remember what she worked on, maybe she just relaxed? Alyanna practiced painting and got good enough to do Alyanna's portraits.  Angelique went into labor in her swimsuit and was taken by Rahsaan to the hospital. Soon enough, her beautiful baby boy was born.

Say hello to Alexander Castaneda!
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After Alexander was born, Angelique's father aged up to elder and had everything in order to partake in ambrosia. As a refresher, Altair is the gardener of the family. He has supermaxed gardening as well as the gardening self-employed career, his two properties are Everfresh Delights Supermarket and Crystal Springs, his lifetime want of having a perfect garden is completed, he has the super green thumb, jetsetter, and no bills ever rewards, his portraits and opportunities are done, and finally as an elder, he had all of his best friends in order.

Here is the Altair himself enjoying a nice plate of ambrosia.
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I'll promptly post an update of the adorable Alexander. I'm trying to catch up as much as possible to where I am now. If you've read this far, thanks so much for reading. I'm having a ball doing this challenge. 

[saltiesophie]

Hello, I am here with the update to Alexander. I'm still super far behind because Alexander isn't the baby in the family anymore. Before I show more of Alexander, I want to post an update that his mother has gotten her best friends and opportunities done as well as during this part of the story has reached level 7 of the athletic career and has supermaxed her martial arts skill. She's living her best life right now - And her twin sister not so much. I want to give her sister a bit more attention as I feel like I've only really been using her to paint instead of letting her have her own wants.

Anyways, Here's a picture of Altair getting heavily judged by Rahsaan just for having a bit of fun.
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Then, here's Rahsaan giving in and joining him over the sprinkler.
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Not much of note happened until Alexander's birthday party. Most of the town it seemed has all aged up to elder - but I guess it doesn't matter because they were all up to party!
Here's one of Altair's friends holding baby Alexander on his birthday as well as the town cooing over him:
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His grandmother, Sha Sha, brought him to the cake, and boy is he adorable! Usually toddlers look kind of weird, but not him!
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He's pretty sassy. Here's him breaking the fourth wall to show the world his displeasure. He just wants to go play already.
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Thank for you for looking at my update. As I'm writing this, things are going pretty well. I don't want to spoil too much though.

[saltiesophie]

It's been a really long time since I've updated. I had gotten burnt out for quite a while, but then I booted it up and remembered, "Oh yeah, I had a Legacy challenge going on!" I'm still determined to finish it as this is the closest I had ever gotten. So, let's get back into it. I'll be trying to catch up with the post and recap as much as possible.

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The first thing I'd like to report is that all of my Sims have been thriving. Everyone has been aging and keeping the friends that they need as well as finding things to keep them occupied.

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My heir is currently doing well, he is going to max out the logic skill I've decided. He's even found a new friend! She's cute, round girl with a couple of siblings. He met her in school and invited her over. That's them doing homework in his bedroom.

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His grandfather got abducted by aliens which spurred the child to start using the telescope more.

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He had stayed so much time studying in his new study room that I had completely forgotten his birthday was coming up. He aged up to teen in front of his potion making stand.

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Sha Sha passed away as well as Rahsaan. That leaves our founder, Theresa. Then there is her son, Altair. Altair was married to Sha Sha and was pretty broken up (even though she was crazy). Then his two daughters, Angelique (The heir) and Alyanna. Then it is Alexander, our newest sim. Here's them enjoying their pool.

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When the two lovebirds aged up, they had a private ceremony. They don't really like crowds, so they decided to be a bit lowkey. Malinda is adorable and her weight changes rapidly (I'm not sure why). She's clumsy, perfectionist, bookworm, light sleeper, and family oriented. I think she'll make a good mother and wife.

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As always, they got right to having the newest generation. Meet Amelia. She's eccentric and exciteable. I think that she look very cute, and I think the way that she looks at her great-great-grandmother is a little interested. It's like she knows. I'm hoping to have her max out the inventing skill, I've never really explored it so I think that'd be pretty nice.