Hello hello!
Welcome to…well…essentially it’s documenting a whole generation of a Legacy I’ve started. As a public sims player, I’ve kind of been awol. Since the pandemic began, life has been unceasing. A friend of mine said that once you hit 30 you really get calm again. And boy do I agree! I’m only 31, but dang that 29 to 31 range has been busy and crazy.
However, I’ve been playing my little butt off. While playing, I have been documenting, but waaaay less with my other projects(which are not dead but grad school takes A LOT of energy). So I’m just posting generations. This lets me just play but also share. I’m already at the point in the game where the last potential generation 3 heir is about to become a teen/just became a teen(it has taken me three weeks to get this worked on). This save has become an excellent way for me to clock out of reality. So it’s kind of chill. Hence, I’m playing a little loose with rules and the like. My general goal is to have fun and reach 10 generations. I feel like that is the bare minimum but it’s all I got. On that topic, this will take me forever to write up. Not because it’s overly long, but every few months something new pops up and slows me down. Over the last six months, I’ve lost two family members that are dear to me and had a sharp downturn in my health. Most of it is severe fatigue and joint pain, but it’s looking more and more like I have an autoimmune disorder with every blood panel done. So this will still be a slow legacy in terms of updates. Also, my writing is probably really inconsistent. So my apologies.
But I have a cup of tea and am not cuddled in any way that would facilitate a nap(not that this hasn’t stopped me before and trust me you will hear about one instance).
First things first. Let’s introduce our founder, Lyra Valantus. While her hair and eye shape may seem familiar, seeing as I used one of my Zane spares as her CAS dad, Lyra was an attempt to move away from my Zanes. I use them for EVERYTHING. While nothing is wrong with that, one of my goals throughout is to use primarily in-game sims for spouses. They can be children of townies and NPCs but if my story progression brings in a version of any sim from my bin, they will be automatically out of the running. That includes their children too. Unless either my sims or I REALLY like them. I’m limiting myself to almost a 1 to 3 ratio-ish when it comes to bringing outside sims as spouses. Essentially, if I feel like bringing in a sim from another simmer, I can but only a maximum of 4 will be allowed. I know I said that I’m playing pretty chill, but this is chill to me. This also means, there might be a big move every few generations.
That being ranted, let me circle back to Lyra. She’s actually pretty special to me in that she is the CAS child of one of my personal sims that I have kept around forever. Her mother is I.V. (pronounced Ivy because I said so). It’s short for Iridessa Valantus. I.V. was part of a scrapped narrative as my simself’s sassy personal assistant. I have kept her around ever since. So when I was looking for someone to play around with, I used her as a jumping-off point.
Here are Lyra’s stats. Her traits were entirely random and I don’t usually touch favorites unless there is a reason to. Her LTW is to become a World-Renowned Surgeon. One of the first things Lyra does is secure herself a spot in the Medical career.
Since I put Lyra in Lucky Palms, I have her test her luck with the fountain. What is one or two simoleons if we can net a little more cash?
Because there was nothing to do until her first shift, I sent her to the library to bulk up on some skills and the like.
While there, we run into her boss and sim I had no idea that was even in Lucky Palms, Walker Sparks. Walker, who until his death was frequently referred to as Walter, was immediately on my spouse radar. That previous sentence, which may I note was written days before this one, may clue you into where I’m going with this.
So over the next few sim days, I have Lyra spend as much free time she can with Walker.
It’s pretty successful.
Here abouts is where I realized that when Walker enters the household I need to keep the semi-hipster vibe he’s rocking.
Need a date but also have a red hunger bar? Send them to the local festival.
Two for one.
Also, the hot dog eating stand is a great place to get engaged.
And a few feet away you can get married.
Which is what Lyra and Walker do. And here are a few things to know about the nuptials. Because Walker, as I found out upon moving in, was like three days from Elderhood, I kinda cheated and MasterControllered him to the beginning of the Adult stage. It’s my game please don’t be mad at my fun-having. Another thing. Walker has a teen daughter that was close to Young Adulthood. So I just kind of left her in the mansion that she and Walker lived in with half of the bank account. Am I a tiny bit evil for abandoning a bit of what is essentially a child? Yes. But oh well. This and some future events made the narrative in my head fun so…
Some may have noticed in the back of a couple of shots that Lyra started with a house that I never showed. Mostly because it was teeny and boring.
With Walker moving in with some money to update and build a nest egg, it was time to give an awkward glance at it.
Like I said before, Walker definitely kept the hipster vibes going.
The first order of business, since Lyra is only maybe a quarter of the way through her young adulthood and Walker only got the one extra lease on life, was to get them some babies to carry on the Valantus name.
I considered cutting this image out because I mostly took it to highlight how cute she looked in the 70’s outfit with a pregmorph but I still think she looks cute and there are almost no pictures between her getting pregnant and having their first born so this is here now.
See what I mean about no pictures?
So this is our first baby in the Valantus Legacy. On one hand, I was happy she was a girl, but also…she did not inherit her mom’s skin tone. So a tiny bit boo there too.
And you know how I mentioned at the beginning about attempting not to fall asleep? Well when I was playing Lyra’s pregnancy, I fell asleep sitting up while playing. Luckily, I had the foresight to pause. So when I woke up, I kept playing while half asleep. When the baby was born, I was kind of under the impression that I was playing a DITFT challenge and decided to name her thusly.
This is Tulip! I love the name but I wish I would have been more awake to choose something a little better. I love generation-by-generation naming themes. I did not intend to have flower or plant names but because of fatigue, this generation will be named after flowers or have floral names.
Since Walker was Lyra’s boss, he had both a job in Medical like Lyra and also the Medical LTW. I found that really boring. So, Walker used his points to change his LTW. I don’t think I took any notes about Walker’s traits but I know he had Natural Cook and I based his life change on that. He always was throwing up wishes attached to cooking and I figured getting that swanky fridge early wouldn’t hurt.
Tulip aged up pretty cute with violet eyes! I love them.
Just a few highlights of Lyra being a bomb mother and Tulip being a little cutie.
Baby number 2.
Unfortunately, because Walker works and Tulip exists, Lyra had to have the baby at home.
This little guy is Florent. Another boring-skinned baby.
Tulip ages up into a kid, which is great because babies and toddlers are kind of boring at times and kids can start to take care of themselves and build a wider variety of skills. So you go Tulip.
With the looser photo style, you will be getting huge jumps in time and a lot of rapid-fire birthdays. I’m sure you got that when I mentioned it but still.
Florent also ages up into a cutie pie.
With Tulip and Florent favoring Walker in the coloring department, I’m aiming for this to be Lyra’s last pregnancy but with multiples, ideally twins. Honestly, Florent was also a twin hopeful. But that didn’t work out. With Walker being older, it may be a trickier task.
On the topic of Walker’s children. This young lady here is his oldest daughter Piper and she is an example of how Sim Karma is real. Piper became Lyra’s boss. Lyra now needs to be friends with Piper after causing her father to abandon her for a woman who was not that much older than her. I can’t make up the drama that story progression throws at me.
Obligatory belly rub pic.
Followed by obligatory labor pic.
Forking shirt balls.
Okay, so I too individual pics of the triplets but I feel like cutting stuff out so I’ll go down the line and just tell you names and any notible attributes if the photo doesn’t show it well enough. On the left is Alder. Alder is our only boy of the trips and has Lyra’s skin. The middle is Clover who like her brother takes after their mother. Finally on the right is Poppy. Poppy takes after Walker.
I really only wanted two but oh well.
Amoung the excitement of having three new babies in the house, Florent grows into a child. I’ll tell you this now, every time I have to pick someone to carry on the legacy, I get stumped. All of the kids so far in this family have been great choices, at least aesthetically.
Sticking with my just throw crap on the page writing style, we have the triplets growing up. I believe all three have Lyra’s pointed ears, because I can’t seem to make a single sim that doesn’t have pointed ears.
Anyway, at the top is our blondie, Poppy. Beneath her is Clover whose hair, similar to her brother below, seems a little redder on the pale green skin. Finally is Alder. I’m sure you’ve caught on at this point but I’ve been dressing everyone but Lyra and Walker are dressed in their favorite colors. There is a ton of green. Green seems to be the running family color. It’s convenient for me since I don’t have to remodel the common area because of guilt.
Another birthday, this one a bit more interesting. Looks like Walker’s extension has ended and he’s now in the final phase of his life. I always play with a custom lifespan which usually tops out at 95ish. I mostly have it like that for balance. However, this makes playing elders a bit unpredictable. I mean they’re usually un predictable but I never really remember how much time I give them.
Last birthday, which is great, is Tulip. I love these kids!
I was going to try and do the skilling thing without these, it was like that for Tulip and Florent. The hope was to stave off the urge. The triplets kinda threw that out the dang window. There was no way to get them skilled before childhood with two working parents without them. Plunk two in the playpen and one in the walker and the only skill needed to be done one on one is potty.
Ughhh it’s so cute!
As I’ve been playing, I’ve been kind of letting my sims guide their own actions. If they want to learn a certain skill, that becomes their focus. However on the flip side, you have a sim like Florent who constantly wants to go for joy rides. He’s in a helmet half his childhood.
Adult birthday impeding childcare. Blah blah.
The biggest thing I’ve done to cut back on my photo count is to cut out notification shots. They take up so much real estate and they can sometimes be super boring. This one however is important. Walker masters his cooking skill. This means he will be stocking the fridges until his death.
I love when the family is all the table, tots not included.
Walker kind of potters around a bunch. He even takes up gambling at the casino when the triplets are older.
Triplets turn into kids. I love them all!
Spoiler but do you truly understand how hard it was to choose one of these kids to move forward!? Teen Florent is a super cutie and he wanted hopscotch. He’s bad at it.
Another weirdly satisfying moment is when they’re all asleep at once.
I haven’t and really won’t be covering the kid’s traits unless they are applicable or relevant. For all of their nice faces, most of the kids of this generation are boooooorring. I keep rolling traits and of course nothing fun has really come up. Besides Alder’s Neurotic trait and Poppy being Artistic, most of the kids just kind float around.
Kids messing around.
Lyra messing around.
Oh hey! Something important!
Walker reached the top of the Culinary Career and by doing that completed his LTW! Plus swanky fridge!
And because he doesn’t need to work for his LTW anymore and they have quite a bit of money, Walker retires.
I don’t know if I forgot or what, but Walker retiring halted everything in the house. All five kids and Lyra dropped everything to applaud. If I remember correctly most of the kids were sleeping!
More importantly to the legacy, the triplets age into teens. We’re heading into the home stretch for the generation! All five kids are such good contenders for heirship. I’m actually having a problem with the next gen with the problem. All the kids there have their pros and cons. Of this gen, however, I’m glad I chose Walker to fixate on.
Or not!! Holy smokes game! WTF?!?!?!
That is some out there old man butt.
Lyra mocking me in trying to figure which pictures and event to include. Do I include the whole “we got tiberium” thing and another 8 billion other mini things that don’t really matter but I have photos of?
Our first child of the generation ages up! Look at Tulip. I had to sit for a good fifteen minutes trying to figure out deep down if I wanted her are heir. In the end, even with violet eyes, she was too boring to be the heir. All of her traits were really passive like sleeping preference. I really liked her and eventually made her into a bit of a work horse. It’s the curse of being the eldest I guess.
Also, I will, eventually be creating a post where you can pick up a Valantus. I have all heirs and spares saved.
Bye Tulip! Maybe we will see you in another life.
Did you know sims with high enough cooking skill can make Lobster Thermador in the microwave?!?! I had no idea. This is game is 13 years old, which in hindsight makes me feel a bit old since I graduate high school a weekish after this game came out. I remember wanting to skip work and school just to play. Still, this game never ceases to amaze me. I love it.
Just a bit of a glimpse of what is happening outside of the house. Walker’s first child and the Valantus kid’s half sister Piper just had her first child making Walker a grandfather.
We have another kiddo turn into a Young Adult. Florent, who also will not be heir, ages up and moves out and into a house with Tulip.
Of all five kids, I think Poppy has the most engaging traits. I can always find something to keep her busy. She signed up for art club at school, gained sculpting, and immediately rolled up a half dozen wants. So I let her.
Another big happenstance! Lyra reached her LTW to be a World Renowned Surgeon! Yay!
Unfortunatly, not all was well for long.
Father of six children, five with his wife Lyra, and dutiful Legacy Husband Walker Valanus nee Sparks died.
I made this doopey little shrine for him. Don’t worry it gets better later.
If I remember correctly, the next day was prom for the remaining teens. Tulip and Florent actually went to prom as well, but nothing interesting happened. The triplets were a bit more interesting. All three came back with relationships we will not be acknowledging along with Alder and one his sisters being prom king and queen. Do I remember who? NOPE!
Apparently Tulip got busy pretty quickly with someone I don’t think is much younger than her father was…so yeah. Lyra’s going to be a grandmother.
Luckly she ages into that role with grace! She’s a cute little elder!
Poppy is rocking those skills yo!
Our triplets age up into young adults which means an heir must be announced. First I want to point out how much trouble I had with Clover. She was top two for carrying on the legacy until she completely broke aging up. Luckily I was able to use MC to cheat it so she wasn’t obliterated off the face of the planet. That being said, I only have Clover(I think) as a teen so when I put her up for download, you get a free choice of trait!
That means, and I’m sure you’ve guessed this at this point, but Poppy will be carrying on the legacy! She is the most interesting and she’s a good blend of her parents with a pop of blonde!
She may be the only of the choices that doesn’t have Lyra’s skin but I’m going to be using one of my outsourced spouses for her that I specifically chose.
So that’s it for the generation! Hopefully, this isn’t too messy. Like I said, it’s mostly to just document what I’m playing so the narrative isn’t really there.
The next generation should be posted in the next few weeks before my Adult Programming class starts and I might run an heir poll over on boolprop for the next heir since I’m having a hard time picking.
Thanks for showing up!
Trunk of Junk 