Welcome back to the Vetinari Dualegacy! This is Chapter 24.5: Somewhere I Belong!

Last time, the usual assortment of stuff happened. Babies, toddlers, children, that sort of thing.

Oh, and Cassidy kissed Gilbert. I guess that was sort of important too.

And that's all the recap you get. Moving on!

At Abel and Vex's house, Vex finally goes PermaPlat. He is now a Mad Scientist. Or, since he's got 10 Nice points, a Slightly Annoyed Scientist.

Not gonna lie, the Evil Robot Hand looks so strange on him.

Still, family life goes on, and Vex and Kaylee teach their respective children (Gretzky and Kati) the joys of homework.

Kati, Abel and Kaylee's daughter, got a whopping ONE Nice point, and Daddy Abel wasn't going to let that stand. I didn't let him go too crazy, though. At five Nice points, she's still the meanest Uglacy descendant of the generation.

A bunch of them wanted a womrat. I haven't had one in ages and ages, but I do have the Caged Pet Fixes hack in place so they don't die just because you put the game on pause for half an hour.

Anyway, his name is Caliban and he looks like a panda.

I invited Brad over with the current main house boys.

Gretzky and George Smith became thick as thieves in no time at all. They spent most of the afternoon playing tag and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

I did manage to drag them over for a water balloon fight, which Kati won, because Kati is the mean one, and generally gets what she wants.

Brad, meanwhile, wandered around the house, chatting with whoever was available, and generally ignoring the maxed-Outgoing antics of Abel and Kaylee.

Delvecchio really wanted to join the Garden Club. I knew I couldn't get him the wishing well, but all he really wanted was the membership.

I like to think giving the Garden Club lady as much of a view as possible helped his chances.

As long as she kept her eyes below his neck, because let's be honest, Vex does not have a pretty face.

I know there are a bunch of kids, and it's hard to keep track. The boy-child is Gretzky. He is Vex's son with Emmy “Hairbuns Hippie” Wood. Vex is an Uglacy spare, and Gretzky is a first cousin to the current Uglacy boys. The girl-child is Katarina, aka Kati, and she is Abel's daughter with Kaylee. Abel is Vex's twin brother, making Kati a first cousin to the Uglacy boys as well. She's also distantly related to the Prettacy crowd through Kaylee, who is Connor's daughter.

Indy--> Bee--> Connor--> Kaylee-->Kati

I'm sure you don't need a refresher on who Indy is.

Mostly I was just playing the spare houses to get the kids grown up to the point where they could be aged up to Teen when I needed them to.

I left these two Smustling and headed off to the next house.

Conveniently enough, the next house is LITERALLY the next house, as in, right next door. This is the house with Edmund Fitzgerald and Channon and Wydah and Mitch, and their daughters.

Edmund Fitzgerald is a tub pirate addict.

They make a 12-Step program for that, but Tub Pirates Anonymous is for QUITTERS.

The two girls are Maui and Tahiti.

Tahiti is the one with the long hair, on the right. Maui is the one with the short hair, on the left.

They're double first cousins, since their mothers and fathers are siblings.

It doesn't matter which one goes with which parents, although I'm pretty sure Tahiti is Wydah and Mitch's daughter. I can't keep them straight either.

Edmund Fitzgerald and Wydah are Bell's children, and Bell is current Prettacy Elder Whitney's twin brother, so Maui and Tahiti are sorta-cousins to the Prettacy kids.

Wydah finally went PermaPlat. She got stuck on the last skill point she needed, and then had a sort of rough pregnancy, so she was a little behind everyone else.

Channon decided to stop Toast while she was out for her morning constitutional, and they spent hours and hours discussing all manner of Pleasure Sim things.

EphemeralToast wrote the Apocalypso-A-Go-Go.

When the weather warmed up, Gretzky, Kati, and the Landgraab twins Tyler and Duncan came over for a playdate.

At the end of the day, there was some awkwardly-positioned Smustling and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Over in Bluewater Village, Simon decided to stop by and remind everyone that he's still adorable.

Yes, Simon. You are still cute.

Ellie continued the long-standing tradition of pork chop pyromania. Thankfully, I always remember a fire alarm, and it's been a while since anyone's set themselves on fire.

Except for Wydah in college. But that was a daily occurrence, and it really got to be a bit boring.

Michael went PermaPlat.

And there are no more pictures of this house, including the boys, because a certain visitor who did not need to be in Bluewater Village hung around for a very long time and got in all of the pictures.

So there are two boys, Duncan is the blonde who looks like Michael, Tyler is the brunette who looks like a Landgraab, they are Mal's grandkids and Malcolm IV's great-grandkids, and very very distantly related to the Prettacy kids through Sycamore. And also distantly related to the Uglacy kids through Malcolm IV's liaison with Coco (which produced Archie and Xander).

The last of the spare houses is Six and Inara. Six is Malcolm Landgraab VI. I think you can work that math out yourself.

Inara is Kaylee's sister. If you need that refresher, go back a few slides.

Six went PermaPlat almost immediately, after waiting a week for the career he needed.

Simon's daughter River followed Six home from work and gleefully destroyed Inara's snowman. In River's world, snowmen have pitchforks.

An exhausted Inara went PermaPlat, leaving Stevie, Francie, and Nikolai the only ones of the generation who aren't. Francie and Nikolai are working on it, but Stevie wants 5 Top Level Businesses, and I'll have to cheat him PermaPlat after one more business, since I lost three to the partial rebuild.

That's Kinsey there on the right. Like Duncan and Tyler, she's distantly related to both lines of the family. She's a double-threat: cute as a bug and mean as a snake.

At the Prettacy, Nikolai managed to spend enough time on the phone to go PermaPlat with 20 Best Friends. It's always harder with the Townie types, since they haven't had their whole lives to build up those relationships.

Jojo continues to be weird and awesome.

<3 Jojo.

I had Whitney retire, and she shot me a celebratory finger-gun.

Somewhere in the midst of all this mess, I installed Bon Voyage and got to play vacations for the first time. Since Whitney and Artie's life bars were getting painfully short, I decided to extend their lives with a little Grandparent Vacation.

In this case, that was only Lawrin, Jojo, and Ben Ali tagging along, but that totally still counts.

Whitney was just irritated that she had to carry the suitcase in her finger-gunning hand.

When they got to Twikkii, Jojo made a beeline for Whitney, and Ben tried to stay as far away from his brother as possible.

It's weird. Jojo and Ben have almost totally opposite personalities, and Ben's the more playful of the two, but he ACTS so much more serious than Jojo does. Ben does not share my appreciation of Jojo's nonlinear nature.

“Who wants to jump rope with seaweed? We can double-dutch!”

None of them have a whole lot of Creativity, so this was vaguely amusing to watch.

I was also reminded how much younger Ben is than Lawrin and Jojo. Normally, the kids are 3 or 4 days apart, but the twins are one day from being able to Teen up, and Ben just turned Child. Lindsay did NOT want to get pregnant again.

They discovered the ocean, and while Ben and Lawrin were fairly cautious about swimming, Jojo just sort of dived right in.

Lawrin was officially the destroyer of the most sand castles. Ben tended to jump on them only if they were built by Jojo.

Ben's definitely the shy one. Jojo and Lawrin had no problems with going to visit community lots in their swimwear, but Ben had to cover up before he'd leave the lot.

For the house, I took one of the existing lots, knocked down a few walls, redecorated, and then cloned it and used it for the Uglacy as well.

I'm going to use these lots ONCE. I figured I'd save myself the hassle of building them myself.

“Okay, so this isn't surprising like my brother would do surprising, right? Like, this isn't curry and peanut butter and candied yams?”

“...Just surprising pineapple.”

The kids spent most of the afternoon exploring the pirate ship.

Except Jojo, who got bored and decided he wanted a tan instead.

In other news, flaming palm trees look AWESOME.

The kids scarf up some pancakes in the wee hours, and Ben Ali tolerates Jojo talking.

The eye-roll is pretty much his default state of being when Jojo is around.

Once again, it's easy to identify the shy ones.

Actually, I don't think Artie's all that shy, he just hadn't been swimming yet that day.

Ben Ali became the first of my Sims to discover a crab in the sand. It did nothing to improve his general disposition.

“Would you just finish already, so I can destroy it?”

“It's all just sand anyway, man.”

Finally, one of the locals started the hula, and everyone joined in, including a couple of other tourists.

Whitney stayed just long enough to get the memory of it, then ran off to pee.

“Keep your food on your own plate!”

“...Sorry.”

“But if I eat fast, I get to play more! Don't you want to play more?”

“Not with you.”

Whitney grasped the hula pretty quickly, despite barely spending any time at all dancing with the local. Ben, who was dancing with the local for a lot longer, still had trouble. Then again, Whitney's got almost full skills, and Ben has a handful of Charisma and however many Creativity he's managed to gain from building sandcastles.

The poor kid just can't catch a break.

I've never seen Artie do this before, but he took an instant dislike to the Pod Person tourist, and picked a fight as soon as she stepped onto the lot.

They'd never met before, she didn't interact with him at all, let alone Pranked him or did something else negative. He just walked right up and started to Argue.

Artie has gotten a bit weird in his old age.

Whitney wanted to learn the massage, so Artie and the kids hung out in the hot springs.

Notice how Jojo and Ben are on opposite sides of the pool.

While the kids amused themselves, so did Artie and Whitney.

Lawrin's the one everyone seems to get along with. She's friends with both of her brothers, even if she does tend to stay out of the middle of their drama.

“Can I just wish for us all to get along?”

He's not mean, or playful. He's just RANDOM.

Dude. Actions. Consequences. Look it up.

Lawrin just sat there calmly for quite a while. I figured she was smart enough not to stick her fingers in the bubbling lava.

Then, sadly, temptation got the better of her, and she got a scorching.

Jojo, on the other hand, just sat down and stuck his hand in there without even considering the possibility that he'd angered the idol and maybe the flaming red lava would be hot.

“Ouchies!”

“You are so dumb. I'm going over there to wait for Grandma and Grandpa to tell me that one of us is adopted. I don't care which one.”

“Okay, I am not going on this helicopter ride if I have to sit next to him.”

“TOO LOUD CAN'T HEAR.”

“GOOD.”

They found the map to the Mysterious Hut on the first tour they took, so no one had to spend hours and hours digging for it.

Whitney fixed all his stuff, but she had to pee when he wanted to give her the Voodoo Doll, and it timed out. She ended up leaving without Mr. Mickles.

She was ROBBED. ROBBED, I tell you.

But she earned it, so I totally cheated her one later.

“I wish you were my only sibling!”

“Well, we were unauthorized twins.”

“I knew he was a mistake!”

“I am tired of going into the Captain's Quarters. Please can I pee now?”

“You look like the weird guy who haunts our yard and cracks his knuckles and looks all electrocuted. Are you electrocuted sometimes?”

“Arrr, yer a strange one, aren't ye?”

The Captain taught Whitney the Sea Chantey.

Then I let her pee.

“And there was a see-through guy on the boat who looks just like that guy who haunts the backyard looking all grumpy, and he and Grandma were singing!”

“Are you sure your brother's the odd one?”

“Imma tell you a secret! YOU'RE WEIRD.”

“That's not really a secret.”

Whitney and Artie made sure to make the most of their island vacation while the kids were asleep.

On their last morning on the island, Artie watched the waves, Lawrin destroyed the last of the sandcastles, Whitney taught Jojo the Sea Chantey, and Ben stayed somewhere Jojo wasn't.

It was all a little too much excitement for Artie and Lawrin, and they passed out in the gazebo thing.

On the ride home, Ben had to sit next to Jojo, and he wasn't happy about it.

At the Uglacy, it's business as usual.

Brad's developed either an addiction to the hot tub or an aversion to pants. I can't tell which.

George and Paul aren't as close as the last few sets of Uglacy twins. George's just as likely to be playing with Jack, like he is here, as with Paul. Or anyone else his age who's over.

Except the BV kids. They've turned into my Marsha Bruenig. And there's a self-imposed restriction on making friends with Townie kids who will never, ever grow up, so it's sort of a wasted trip every day when they show up on the bus.

It's nice to know that Tess throws up in her mouth a little when she thinks of her grandson.

I'm sure that won't give him a complex or anything.

“You know you're part alien, right?”

“Yeah, but Paulie got the eyes!”

The puppy is Groosalugg.

Drusilla was pretty insistent that the wolf stay away from the puppy. I don't blame her.

“The house is full, so I'll sell you some of the dogs, even though you totally can't, like, own another living being, you know?”

“I know. But Kati and Gretzky will love the dogs anyway, even though they really belong to Mother Earth.”

“Right on.”

Tess and Brad taught the twins how to do homework, while Francie entertained the headmaster.

I maybe should have had Tess entertain the headmaster, since she's friends with pretty much everyone, but in the end, it didn't matter, since the boys all got in anyway.

Also note the BV child standing in a corner, ignored.

Brad and Tess still enjoy their alone time.

Brad still enjoys not wearing pants.

Groosalugg grows up, and he's got three black feet like he's been walking in soot or something.

He's a weird mix of both of his parents, although I sort of miss the eyebrows.

More vacation!

This time, Kati and Gretzky got invited along, since they're cousins.

Apparently, even with controlpets on, you still can't force them to go to bed. Or maybe that's because of the Smarter Beds hack. Sadly, that was one of the LEAST annoying things about the vacation.

Brad does own proper bottoms! Hooray!

Kati decided to try making nice with George Smith, although that may just be because George gives off “be friends with me” vibes that no one can resist.

Paulie showed off a cartwheel for Tess.

Or maybe that's Jack. Hard to tell from here, when they're in their school uniforms. Lack of discernible chin makes me think Paulie, though.

“Can I smash it yet?”

“You hafta wait 'til I'm done!”

These kids are more skilled than the last bunch, and for the most part, make things that actually look like castles instead of heaps of sand.

And they sit down to a delicious meal of grilled cheese sandwiches, because Tess is cooking.

It's pretty bad when Gretzky's the most normal-looking one on the whole vacation.

I mean, I think Paulie has, like, NEGATIVE cheekbones. And no chin. I SO wish he had some of Stevie's features, because if he did, he'd be heir, no question.

Paulie and George did some late-night digging, and that was about the last time anything went well for any of them.

Thus began the Summer of the Crab.

Before this, Ben was the only Sim who'd gotten clamped by a crab when he was combing for shells.

After this?

Damn near every other time one of them touched the sand, they got up with a crab attached to their fingers. All five of the kids caught multiple crabs. Sometimes two or three in a row. After a while, my fingers started having sympathy twinges.

“Grandma, there are SO MANY CRABS.”

“So stop digging.”

“But I haven't found anything yet! EXCEPT FOR CRABS.”

I sent them to the hotel that's basically been Our Lady of the Perpetual Hula every time I've had Sims on the lot.

No hula. Not even a hint of a hula.

Not this time, or the two other times I sent them to this lot.

And this is the only lot I've ever had locals hula at before.

So this crowd did not learn the hula.

It goes without saying that they did not learn to Hang Loose. I've never had ANY Sim learn the local gesture without me making the local controllable. I am unconvinced that it's even possible to autonomously learn the local gestures. I'll believe it when I see it. And I won't hold my breath.

They did enjoy the pirate ship, though. I had no idea that Play Pirate was a thing until George rolled the Want for it. Possibly he thought he'd get to play WITH a pirate, but he was sadly mistaken.

Tess learned the Sea Chantey and taught it to Jack at the first available opportunity.

Everyone else chilled out in the hot springs. Brad was off learning the massage, because it was an excuse to not wear pants.

They took the parasailing tour, although what parasailing company would let small children do that, I have no idea. Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen to me.

Tess and Brad were adorable, and most of the kids got fed, so all is well.

Jack's lazy, so he doesn't need to eat so much.

Then Gretzky decided it would be AWESOME to glitch in the middle of the road. He couldn't move, and no amount of Force Error would fix him. Being a community lot, I couldn't move him in Buy Mode, and he couldn't leave the lot. I ended up deleting him and hoping he wasn't completely borked.

Also I seem to have downloaded the Yellow Pee hack in my last trip through Pescado's DC.

Because Gretzky got his motives reset when everyone else got back to the home lot, Brad took him along to the Mysterious Hut, where the Witch Doctor once again failed to produce a genuinely earned Mr. Mickles.

Gretzky was still glitchy, and I had to delete him again.

At this point, I think we were all counting the hours until it was time to leave.

I checked in SimPE, and Gretzky's file wasn't shredded. The glitchiness went away and hasn't been back, so it was a happily temporary thing.

George and Gretzky risked their fingers combing for seashells. Paulie played it smart with a sandcastle. Kati decided to avoid the sand altogether, as did Jack.

Then Paulie just HAD to push his luck.

“I wish everyone stays safe for the next generation. I hope that's not too much to ask.”

FINALLY the nightmare is over, and they pack up and leave.

Gretzky got the chinlessness from Vex. I wish Stevie'd gotten that. It would look SO NOT GOOD with the mouth.

Jack's one Neat point was starting to get on my nerves. I've had other slobs, but I was getting sick of the puddles. I had Tess Encourage him up to three, just to cut down on the messes in the bathrooms.

Brad set fire to his dinner for the first time ever. Maybe the shorts are affecting his brain?

Stevie's still around, but when he's awake, he's mostly chained to the Robot bench, working on his Gold badge, or he's on his phone, keeping his friends.

I do occasionally let him off his leash.

While George was bonding with his dad, Paulie was watching Brad eat charred pork chops, and Jack was teaching his mom the Sea Chantey.

Rosemarie still likes to scare when she haunts, but I don't think it's a malicious thing. She just misses the days of Meet Someone New +1000.

I had no idea that Sims could tell the story of how they found stuff on their vacations. I think this story began with “SO MANY CRABS.”

The night they got home, Jack was ready to grow up, and there's no sense in waiting.

A lot of the time, the faces will sort of even out a little as they hit Teen, so I'm not anticipating a big facial explosion with this one. I'm betting it'll get bad when he gets to college. You can see the echoes of it, though—the eye bags, the lack of cheekbones, the busted nose.

Everyone who was awake and not otherwise chained to a crafting bench wandered over eventually.

“My hair's not glitching through my face yet!”Give it time.

Giacomo “Jack” Vetinari, born Libra 1/8/1/10/8, currently 3/8/5/10/8.

Jack rolled Romance, of all things. He has to get married so his kid will have the Vetinari name, and I feel like I might do the college re-roll for him. Even if I don't do the re-roll, he rolled a career-related LTW (Visionary; I downloaded the hack that enables them to get Uni careers as LTWs), so getting married won't make him go crazy-go-nuts no matter what.

Tess is just glad things are going smoothly, and George doesn't care what's going on, as long as there's someone to play with.

At the Prettacy, Jojo still likes pink. Lots and lots of pink.

Also, at this time, I upgraded OpenOffice and they changed things that were already OK, and now I can't figure out how to get the text to left-justify properly, and it really, really wants to put bullet lists EVERYWHERE, but it's still better than PowerPoint.

I sorted out how to get the pictures in the slides, though, so that's a victory in itself.

Less of a victory is Lindsay glitching Nikolai's crotch through the kitchen table while Lawrin is still trying to finish her breakfast.

Thing was, when Gretzky glitched and I popped open SimPE to see if it was terminal? I couldn't stop from checking to see how long the Elder types had left.

Turned out, for Artie, it was not long at all.

Not long as in, a few hours.

All he really wanted to do was go on one last date with Whitney, and how can I say no to that? So one last date it was.

Held in the utterly romantic location of the front hall, because I am too lazy to send them to a community lot for this sort of thing.

Yes, I did cheat Whitney the Mr. Mickles she earned, and I left it on the floor because I am really, really bad at cleaning out Inventories when people die.

Like I meant to pass Artie's cell phone along to one of the grandkids, which utterly failed to happen. It's not like they don't have the money to buy more cell phones, but it's easier just to hand them down. When I remember to do it, that is.

Lilah the cat is related to Colin the Antisocial Rage-aholic Cat, and partway through Artie and Whitney's date, she decided to pick a fight with the visiting wolf, and lost. Badly.

Watching the family pet get beat up by a wild animal doesn't affect the date score. Good to know.

This is what they both really, really Wanted to do.

Recapturing their wild and crazy college days, maybe? Just with more risk of a broken hip and having to stop to pee.

Of course, it all ended with a pillow fight in the kitchen, as these things do.

And when I say “ended,” I mean that literally, of course.

Jojo's sleep schedule is totally screwed up, so he was upstairs sleeping, but everyone else was there to say goodbye to Artie.

“C'mon, brah. I'll take ya to the sun, sand, and all the bubbles ya can stand.”

“Wasn't I just at the sun and sand? And I don't really do bubbles.”

“Just take the drink, brah. That's how it goes.”

Arthur Formerly Schuster Currently Vetinari lived 75 days. He married Gen 7 heir Whitney and had three children, Lindsay, Sawchuk, and Aurie, and three grandchildren, Lawrin, Joe Cotton, and Ben Ali. He maxed at least one career and utterly doted on his grandkids. He died still wanting MOAR GRANDBABIES.

He left inheritance to 10 people, including 20K to Whitney, 8K to Aurie, 2500 to Lawrin, 6800 to Sawchuk, and 9700 to Lindsay.

Artie, you were low-maintenance and inoffensive, and you actually wanted to potty-train the toddlers. Kudos.

Lindsay and Whitney tried to pretend like nothing was wrong, going to far as to tell a Dirty Joke through the middle of Artie's urn.

That would be the Platinum Fortune urn I needed to make the full set of graves, of course.

It was all a lie, though. Dirty Jokes could not cover the sadness of Artie's passing.

Nikolai drowned his sorrows in cocoa. Lindsay and Whitney went the more traditional route of crying hysterically every few minutes.

Lawrin wasn't immune to the weepiness either, but she hadn't been Fearing Artie dying, and she WAS Fearing Whitney dying, so I grew her up as soon as I could, so that I didn't have to deal with death-related Aspiration redness if I waited.

Not that Whitney was ready to drop dead that day, but it was coming.

Jojo and Ben were both sleeping, but the adults gathered around for Lawrin's transition.

Why do they never seem to transition into full-body outfits that have the benefit of actually matching?

“I finger-gun!”Of course you do.

Lawrin Vetinari, Leo 5/10/5/3/5. Yup, another naked hot-tubber!

Lawrin rolled Family, of all things. Third time ever! Happily, she rolled a job-related LTW, so even if I don't re-roll her Aspiration in college, she won't freak out if she doesn't get to breed. Which she won't. She's Gen 9, so none of these kids are guaranteed offspring, aside from the heirs.

I'll just have to see how traumatized she is at the prospect of NO BABIES. Besides, I think she'd make a pretty good Pop Sim, just like her parents and grandmother.

I woke Jojo up to grow him up and hopefully get him sleeping on a more normal schedule.

He took Artie's death pretty hard, but at least Founder Orson didn't scare the cookies out of him while he was emotionally vulnerable.

His siblings were asleep, but once again the adults gathered 'round and watched a birthday.

Jojo was very angry that he did not transition into pink pajamas.

“But you found pink pajamas!”And a pink T-shirt too.

Joe Cotton “Jojo” Vetinari, Pisces 2/8/10/3/10. He finger-guns AND does the Creepy Nice Point Smile.

Jojo rolled Pleasure, which I might normally get irritated about, since he's so Serious, but honestly, I think it suits him. He also got a career-related LTW, so I don't even have to re-roll that in college or deal with one of those “million zillion dates yay!” LTWs.

And if anyone has a problem being thrown to him for Aspiration Fodder in college, let me know, because he'll probably want loads of dates anyway, and I will probably give them to him just because I like him.

While Jojo was off making himself pretty, Nikolai got himself fat again.

I don't know what his deal is—he's not particularly lazy or sloppy, and I have noeatcrap in, so he stops eating when he's not hungry, but somehow, he keeps managing to get fat.

And then he rolls the Want to Get Fit, which in the past I've done because he wasn't PermaPlat and I needed to keep him happy.

I explained to him that I would Get him Fit one more time, and after that, he's on his own. He can eat what he wants and use the Dance Sphere if he chooses, but it's up to him.

I should mention that no one can make lobster. If they get up to 10 Cooking, I cheat them back down to 9. Even Lindsay, who's a Celebrity Chef.

Jojo had to go out and buy cell phones, and he took advantage of the photo booth at SupremeNerd's House of Stuff.

Happily, he was not Taking Advantage of it in the way that so many other Sims have in the past.

Back at home, he rocked out for a while, and then seemed to understand that his grandmother was missing her husband, and did a little bonding.

Eventually, the morning evolved into a dance party in the living room, aside from Ben Ali and Whitney, who were playing chess upstairs.

“Dad? I'm pretty sure that wasn't cool even in the 70s.”

“Have you never watched Saturday Night Fever?”

Whitney, meanwhile, spent her time tub pirating when no one was home and she'd already done her Call Friends for the day.

When a Sim greets the Headmaster like this, it's a pretty good bet the kids are getting into private school.

Carver followed Lindsay home from work, and Gen 2 heir Juniper haunted for the first time since I got the graves back, but managed to spend the whole night in the house without scaring anyone.

Artie haunted for the first time that night too. After the obligatory cry over his moved grave, he floated around the house, as mellow in death as he was in life.

Life mostly went on as usual. Nikolai and Lindsay stalked each other, and Jojo was fairly bad at a game involving a rigid set of rules requiring a logical plan of attack.

Two days after Artie, it was finally Whitney's turn. She sang one last Sea Chantey, then started calling up the relatives for one last game of Rock Paper Scissors.

Sawchuk brought Howie along as moral support. They stopped the Smustle long enough for Whitney to get a last hug in.

Just a few feet away from where Artie went, Death Spicoli showed up for Whitney.

Bell was kind of oblivious until the deed was almost done.

Whitney tried to spill her umbrella drink in retaliation.

Whitney Vetinari, Gen 7 Prettacy heir, lived 77 days. She had two brothers, Carver and Bell, three children, Lindsay, Sawchuk, and Aurie, and three grandchildren, Lawrin, Joe Cotton, and Ben Ali. She topped at least one career in her lifetime and spent much of her free time in the bathtub making “Arrrr” noises.

She left money to 29 people, including 9600 to Lindsay, 9100 to Aurie, 2475 to Jojo, 2400 to Ben, and 960 to Nikolai.

Whitney, you were pretty chill and didn't let Bucky or Fair get under your skin, and you were always there for Tess. Thanks.

And then there was Smustling and finger-gunning mixed in with the tears.

Turns out that Lawrin is not a particularly good Family Sim. Larch and Xander would have been inconsolable at this point.

Anyway, here's Whitney and Artie's graves. Artie's is really the important one, since it's my only Fortune Platstone here.

Still working on getting the portraits of the current generation up. There's one of Nikolai there that I might not keep. I haven't decided yet.

“Uncle Sawchuk, Uncle Sawchuk! What do you do when you're the normal one and you have to put up with the weird kid?”

“Mostly you just keep your mouth shut and your head down.”

“There's not a better way to do it?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

As I have mentioned before, I am also bad at keeping Sims home from work on the days when there's going to be a death in the family. I caught Lindsay just a few seconds too late to stop her from getting in the car, so off to work she went.

She took it pretty hard when she got home, and Kestrel is no help at all in these situations.

“My mom died!”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE DO NOT DIE THEY JUST STOP CALLING FOR A REALLY REALLY REALLY LONG TIME MY PARENTS AND MY BROTHER ARE NOT DEAD THEY ARE JUST SUPER BUSY.”

Elsewhere in Riverblossom Hills...

“Hey, I'm still kinda hungry. You wanna split a piece of cake or something?”

“Heh. I wouldn't trust the pastry chef here to make Play-Doh.”

“Well, not everyone can be Gilbert Jacquet, Super-Baker.”

“I'd rather bake sweets than eat them anyway.”

“Uh, you do know what you do for a living, right?”

“It's complicated. If you're in the mood for dessert, I have a pint of blackberries in my fridge at home. I could do something amazing with them if you want.”

“Um... This is actual dessert, right? Not metaphorical dessert? I don't think I'm ready for metaphorical dessert.”

“Actual dessert. No metaphors in sight.”

“Then, yeah. I'd like to see what you can do with blackberries.”

“I should probably give you the house tour, huh? We're standing in the living room and that is the kitchen. Thus concludes the house tour.”

“I like it. It's cozy.”

“Sorry about the décor. Not my choice.”

“It does sort of look like a little old lady exploded in here. Not really, because that would be icky, but, you know.”

“Pink floral prints do not scream 'Bachelor Pad'?”

“What are those doors over there?”

“Oh, that's the bathroom and Mother's room. Nothing terribly interesting, unless you like pink floral toilet seat covers.”

“The yard looks cool, though. I bet you could throw some good parties on the deck. So what's up the stairs?”

“Just my room. Literally. It's a loft. I could show you if you want.”

“Oh, um, I don't think I'm ready for upstairs yet.”

“You don't have to be.”

“Do you want me to be?”

“Cass, I don't want anything from you that you don't want. You know that.”

“I don't want you to get tired of waiting.”

“I'm a very patient man.”

“Nobody's patient forever.”

“I'll be patient forever if that's what you need. I'm not going to hurt you, Cassidy. Take things at your own pace.”

“One step at a time, right?”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“Oh!”

“Gilbert?”

“Gilbert!”

“Mother, what are you doing here? It's the middle of the day!”

“A delivery truck hit a transformer box and knocked out power to the whole street! And I'm not the one who should be answering questions about what I'm doing here!”

“It's my day off!”

“And this is how you choose to spend your free time?”

“As a matter of fact, it is!”

“And I suppose you choose to spend the rest of your free time with this... person?”

“You are starting to push your luck, Mother. This person is named Cassidy, and he's my boyfriend and I really don't care if you like that or not.”

“It is high time you got over this, this silliness, Gilbert. You need to find yourself a good woman and settle down.”

“The hell I do!”

“I want grandchildren! Your father would have wanted grandchildren, a family to carry on the Jacquet name! Think of what you're doing to his memory!”

“Dad would have wanted me to be happy, which I am!”

“He never would have approved of your hedonism!”

“I seem to remember Dad enjoying the hell out of his life.”

“When will you learn that there's more to life than having fun?”

“When will you figure out that I don't have to live my life by your rules? I don't want a wife and 2.5 kids and a white picket fence! That's your dream!”

“Oh, now you're just being selfish.”

“I'm being selfish? Ever since Dad died, you've been trying to mold me into what you want me to be, and enough's enough! I'm through letting you tell me what my life should be!”

“Be very careful, Gilbert. You are walking out onto some very thin ice. You are going to have to choose, right now, whether you're going to keep walking.”

“Is that some sort of threat?”

“You just have to decide what's more important to you. Family? Or him?”

“Are you really doing this, Mother? Is this really what you want to do?”

“You've put yourself into this position.”

“No. You're the one who's forcing my hand here. And if you don't back down, you might not like what happens next.”

“If I'm pushing you, it's only to make you see what's really important.”

“I know what's important. And since you're so keen to make me choose between you and the man I love, I choose him!”

“You're not serious!”

“Completely serious, actually.”

“First you have the nerve to bring that man into my home, and—“

“It's not your home! It never was! This is my house and I'll bring into it whomever I please!”

“Gilbert—”

“No. You've said your piece. Now it's my turn. You're a horrible, hateful, spiteful old woman...”

“...and I want you out of my house. You just overstayed your welcome.”

“You wouldn't dare!”

“I just did.”

“You will regret this!”

“I don't think I will. I believe you can show yourself to the door. Don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out. Or do. I can't be bothered to care.”

“I'm sorry, Cass. I never meant for that to happen. Certainly not in front of you.”

“It's okay.”

“It's not. I'm sorry.”

“No, I mean... Things always go bad around me. I'm just bad luck or something.”

“Cass, that fight really wasn't about you. You're not bad luck.”

“But if I hadn't been here, that wouldn't have happened. See? It's me.”

“That was long overdue to happen. It wasn't your fault. You've made me happy enough that I don't think you're any kind of luck but good.”

“Gil? Did you mean everything you said?”

“I wouldn't have said it if I didn't.”

“No, but did... Did you mean it when...? When you said...?”

“Did I mean it when I said I loved you? Of course I did.”

“Do you want me to say it again? I love you, Cassidy.”

“Gilbert? I think maybe I'd like to see the upstairs now.”

“You don't have to.”

“I think that's mostly why I want to.”

“I mean it, Cass. You don't owe me anything.”

“I owe you a lot. But this just isn't how I have to pay you back.”

“As long as you know that.”

“Just shut up and kiss me.”

“As you wish.”

“Cass, wait. Hang on.”

“Okay?”

“I just feel like I should tell you that I've never actually done this with another man before.”

“Oh. Do you not want to?”

“I want to. I just thought you should know that this is sort of... my first time.”

“Oh. Well, I've never done this with someone I loved who actually loved me back, so I guess this is sort of the first time for both of us.”

“You love me, Cassidy?”

“I love you, Gilbert.”

...

“Cass?”

“Yeah?”

“There's something I want to ask you. You don't have to answer right away. You can think about it as long as you want.”

“'Kay.”

“It's just that I seem to be down a roommate. I thought you might want the position.”

“Are you asking me to move in with you?”

“If you want to.”

“Okay, then, yes.”

“You can take your time and think about it.”

“No, I know, but I don't need to...”

“This is where I belong.”