from the ground up: chapter eight

From the Ground Up:A Towering Legacy

Chapter Eight:Raising a Riot

Welcome back to From the Ground Up!

Last time, Jazz found out there are consequences to affairs, in the form of new baby, Fern. Jim, Jazz’s husband, was completely nuts anyway, and didn’t seem to notice the new baby that looked nothing like anyone…also, Belle aged to a child and stole the attention away from everyone else. Also, the family got a new dog, Dash, who isn’t as interesting as the old dog. Finally, Poppy grew into a gorgeous teen of the Pleasure aspiration.

Onwards! (and upwards? )

We join the family to find the sisters hanging out in front of the portraits of their parents. Because that’s totally a cool place to hang out.

At least they’re not blocking any stairs by playing red hands there.

“Poppy, now you’re grown up, are you going to steal attention from me?”

“Of course! I’m way more fun than you are now!”

“No fair! I’m cute!”

“I’m also cute. And I want fifty dream dates. So you know, I could start on that right away. That’ll make me more interesting than you.”

“Don’t!”

“You’re fun to tease, Belle.”

After Poppy and Bluebell went to school, Jim had another breakdown. I mentioned he’d lost his mind, right?

“WAH! I’m from a tropical island and it’s SNOWING! Also, this room STINKS!”

Apparently Poppy and Belle don’t wash up their dishes. But with four neat points between them, what did you expect?

“Ew, that baby STINKS!”

“Well, if you could move out the way, I could go change her.”

“Nope. I need to go down the stairs. You move!”

Once Poppy had passed the first obstacle of the stairwell, she quickly found herself up against another one.

“Who’s a good dog, blocking the hallway?”

Tower living, right?

“Will you hurry up and change that stinky kid who looks nothing like me?!”

“I’m trying!”

It seemed to take FOREVER.

Eventually, Fern did get her nappy changed. Poppy even managed to get back down the stairs to get her a bottle!

Fern’s kind of cute, right? Different, but cute.

Let’s nip out to see Cube for a moment…

This is where Cube lives. It’s a seriously altered house from the lot bin. You’ll note that it’s not a tower – I figured one tower is already crazy enough, spares can have whatever!

Now, I said I wasn’t going to play spares, but…

Well, I changed my mind. So Cube got to fall in love with this gentleman, Alejandro Alioto.

There are two amazing things about Alejandro –

1. His name2. He has elf ears

Of course, it wouldn’t be right to have such a fun couple without letting them have kids!

This is Eric Alioto, who has a personality of 5/7/6/7/6

His personality generally means that Eric is a handful and a half. But a fun handful!

So far, he seems to take mostly after his mother – though he didn’t inherit her slouch.

Eric has a little sister named Erin, whose personality I apparently didn’t write down. So that will have to wait.

Now let’s check in on Beat!

Beat also lives in a seriously refurbished house from the lot bin. You can probably guess which one, actually. I kept the shape fairly similar.

Beat found himself a lovely townie named Sunny Louie, married her, and had a son. This is Charlie. As you can see, he inherited Beat’s no-nose.

They make a nice little family, if a little boring. Slightly too functional to be interesting!

Back at the tower, and Fern is beginning to grow on Jim.

“You’re cute even if you don’t look like me!”

In fact, for the next day or so, Jim became Fern’s main carer for some reason. He really took a shine to her.

“Jim! Why are you blocking the stairs?!”

“You had an affair and thought I wouldn’t notice. Now I’m going to stand here all day just to annoy you.”

He kept that promise, folks. There’s no revenge like tower revenge.

That evening, Jim finally took a break from being in the way to take Fern to her cake.

I’m pretty sure Jazz was at work and that’s why Jim got to do it, but I like to think he insisted that he should do it. He adores Fern, afterall.

Fern grew into a fairly cute kid. I like her, anyway.

Another reason for Jazz having an affair with Zeeshan – I wanted to see what his genetics were like. He’s got one of the busted face templates, which I fixed in simPE, and I wanted to see if I’d fixed it properly.

Fern is evidence that I have.

Belle tried to bond with her little sister, but it didn’t go quite to plan.

“TICKLE MONSTER!”

“No, don’t touch me!”

“Well, you’re no fun!”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t know you very well.”

“You’ve known me ALL YOUR LIFE!”

“Which isn’t very long! I only aged up today!”

“Fine. I’ll find something we can both enjoy.”

“Like what?”

“Like Poppy dancing! Hahaha!”

“Hang loose!”

I’m beginning to think the craze of vacation gestures – and the hula – will never die out.

Poppy rolled the want for a drum kit, so I moved some stuff around to make room for one. Though apparently, they only take up four tiles. Neat!

Needless to say, Poppy loved it.

It looks to me like Fern is more playful than her siblings. I mean, they all slide down banisters and stuff, but this is the first tub-pirate of the generation.

“Land, ho!”

Just another reason to love Fern!

The next evening, the headmaster was invited over. Unfortunately it wasn’t the same one we had LAST generation, because that would’ve have been cool – Jazz was good friends with him.

The girls all got in fine, it just would have been easier with the other headmaster.

To celebrate, everyone stayed up much later than they should have done, messing around.

Belle and Fern didn’t work out they could have a snowball fight instead of dragging the pillows outside.

While romance between Jazz and Jim certainly isn’t dead, I very rarely take pictures of them making out or whatever – you’d be so bored of seeing it.

Instead, you get to se e this side of their relationship. Battling out who has to make breakfast .

To me, it seems like Jazz is losing.

Outside, the fun and games continue. Well, I say fun and games. It’s possibly better off described as attempted murder.

“You nearly knocked my cute little head off!”

“Should have been paying attention to the game!”

I have gone from having nice sims to mean sims in one generation. How did this happen?!

Another day passed, and Belle came home with good grades. Only Jim was in the bathroom, so she stood cheering at the door.

I had completely forgotten sims could make paper aeroplanes out of the newspaper!

Poppy was very nearly late to school because of this!

I’m guessing I played a lot of this on speed three, as it looks like ANOTHER day has passed.

This time with Fern getting excellent marks! Jim was able to fully appreciate this good report card – and Fern’s one of his favourites.

Hooray, time for another birthday!

Excited? What do you mean ‘no’?

“I’m gorgeous and smart and all grown up!”

Predictably, Belle grew up gorgeous – we all expected that. Interestingly, she rolled knowledge. So that’ll be fun! We’ve yet to have a knowledge sim!

Maybe she’s not as smart as she thinks, because Belle really struggled with that kiddie’s homework.

“Cute people shouldn’t have to do this stuff!”

Belle did eventually finish and then decided to support her sister on her video games.

“Kick his butt, Fern! DO IT!”

They don’t have enough nice points to play quietly.

The next day, Belle brings home one of the few teenagers in the ‘hood, her cousin Eric Alioto.

He’s pretty much the same age as Belle.

Unfortunately, the tower wasn’t designed for teenagers to hang out in, and so Eric blocked the stairs for anyone older than Poppy.

When Fern came home, she brought Charlie Louie with her. I thought he was a red head as a toddler, he turned out to be a brunette.

At this point, the only cousin missing is Erin Alioto, who is the same age as Fern.

“Hey, Eric. Wanna hear a secret?”

“This better not be you telling me how cute you are again.”

“But it’s such a good secret!”

Damn, now I really wish someone had invited Erin over. We could have had all the cousins in the same picture!

I wondered if Beat would come and collect his son – it would be awesome to have Beat back at the tower, even if it was just for a bit – but Sunny came instead.

Once the cousins were gone, Fern was straight back on the games console. She uses it the most, I swear. Occasionally with one of her sisters spectating.

“I can’t watch! Okay, I’ll watch with one eye open…”

I have reflections turned off in my game, but Belle’s still convinced she can see herself.

I decided to send the kids to university this generation, but it turns out they don’t have much in the skills department – both of my teens have a handful of creativity points and a logic point or two.

So it’s time to get to work, and Dorian’s mini golf finally gets some use!

Meanwhile, Poppy used the chocolate machine Jazz earned. When she wasn’t stuffing her face with sweets, she was causing chocolate-y puddles on the floor.

It went well, though.

“Thank you! I like getting money for not working very hard!”

Seriously, that mini-golf reward is quick as anything to build up charisma.

So what was Fern up to while all of this skilling was gone on?

Well, to me, it looks like she’s trying to itch her face without taking a hand off the controller. A hard task to master.

Whilst playing this little update, I saw something in game I had never seen before – Jim tossed a lump of his food over his shoulder for Dash to eat.

I didn’t even know that was a thing! :D

“Oh, okay, I make a wonderful spaghetti dinner and you feed it to the dog. I see how it is.”

Poppy was less impressed than I was.

Instead of coming down for dinner, Fern spent the evening causing mischief and bouncing on her bed.

Now, I’ve been warned that this can cause heatstroke and therefore a visit from the social worker, but I’ve never had that happen (touch wood).

Poppy has her drum kit, and Belle has her violin! Jim’s kids are musically talented! We’ll just have to wait and see if Fern follows the trend.

The next day was the first day of summer, and so a celebratory water balloon fight was held.

“Join my side, Fern, and we’ll take down Dad together!”

“No, join me, Fern! Let’s see if your sister’s make up is water proof!”

“I want no part in this.”

The beginning of summer also meant fresh food.

“Stupid question, but why is my cereal sparkling?”

The chaos continued well into the night, but what else is new?

“Are you sure you get to move my pieces as well as yours?”

“Trust me, this is how professionals play.”

And finally, it was time for Fern to step up to the cake.

I’m pretty excited to have all three girls as teens.

Fern is actually really pretty! She must also want to be like Belle, because she rolled knowledge.

With Fern now a teen, I can FINALLY start the heir poll!

Poppy StonePleasure/Knowledge2/7/10/6/8

Poppy’s the eldest, and the only one to inherit her mother’s bug-eyes. She loves nothing more than playing the drums, and cooking meals.

Bluebell “Belle” StoneKnowledge2/7/9/6/1

Belle takes after her father, in both looks and demeanour. She can usually be found with her violin, or telling people how cute she is.

Fern StoneKnowledge10/10/2/10/1

The product of an affair, Fern is very different from her siblings. She’s a bit of a tomboy, and is never very far from the games console.

----------------That’s it! Choose wisely, and I’ll see you next time!