More Death

So my friends had been whining at me that I shouldn't just kill off my Sims, since they're supposedly the last people on Earth or something to that effect.

Instead, I decided to keep Emil alive, but in the cage, since he kept getting into fights with his only son, Jacob, who I need for a little bit longer until he clears Athletics and then I don't care what anyone says, he's dying horribly.

Isn't she the sweetest thing, to visit him in his vomit-and-piss-filled hole?

For some reason no one thinks this is any more humane, but Emil lives to a ripe old age of ~108 days. I wasn't paying too much attention to him towards the end.

And then he dies, and everyone breaks into mourning, but it's okay because it's a weekend so only Jacob who hated him anyway still has to work.

Wait, Jacob's in mourning now? What gives, guy?

Bah.

Emily made her lifetime want of Perfect Mind, Perfect Body, but I really have nothing to spend the LTR points on.

And Abigail got offered a switch to Military. I agonized over that one, but ultimately Military is just a better lift than Science, no matter how you slice it. So now she's in Military.

I'm finding playing such a large family to be exhausting for long stretches of time, so I'm focusing on achieving goals one at a time. In this case, the goal was "DIE EMIL DIE." Next up: Maybe some lifts?

Oh and:

This time the pillow fighting ended in anger.

Jamie's angry that she got woken up by such loud Sims (light sleeper, remember?) and Grim gets angry at the end because he's just a sore loser.

So that's that.

Symphonic and Adulthood

Everyone got a different career from the paper, so that was nice.

Jacob got Athletic, Emily got Medical, and Abigail got Paranormal.

I didn't much care for Paranormal, so the next day I had Abigail look for another job (Thanks Master Thief!) and she got Science instead. Much better!

I picked up Buzz's Mood Fix mod again, since it still works as of the latest patch, to fix my permanently-elated Sims problem.

It was a close shave, also, but Emil cleared Symphonic! Woo! Spring to arrive in nine days.

Time to take stock of jobs and traits - I got all of the children successfully to adulthood - for a given definition of success. (And in one or two cases, 'adult' ... )

Emil: Age 93 and still kicking

Emily: 
 - Medical Career
Pretty nice, a tier two lift, definitely not going to complain. It'll be nice to get rid of smelly sims, and it'll be something to spend LTRs on.

 - Hates the Outdoors
Eh, neutral.

 - Virtuouso
Would be great on a musician. Neutral.

 - Loser
Ehhh. She gets a positive moodlet when she gets promotions, and she doesn't win much at chess.

Edit: Being a loser is one of the only two ways to be totally immune to death. As seen here:

She's fine an hour later. I forgot that ranting about death will cause him to come immediately and kill you. Good thing she's a loser!

 - Childish
Eh. Hasn't hurt so far.

 - Athletic
Would be better on a career that needed athletics. Neutral.

Abigail:
 - Science Career
Woo! A very strong tier two, and with the frequency that aliens show up and/or abduct, could quickly become a tier one. Although all the aliens appear to be old folks ....

 - Virtuouso
Again, could be better.

 - Genius
Not bad.

 - Never Nude
Utterly neutral.

 - Artistic
Would be great on an artist.

 - Light Sleeper
Could be worse. Doesn't seem to have too much of an impact.

Jacob: 
 - Professional Sports Career
Very nice tier two, moving stuff around would be great since I don't like where most of my stuff currently is Also will help if Emil dies in a bad spot, since I'll be able to move the stuff to accomodate his grave.

 - Loves the Outdoors
Positive moodlets while outside. Not terrible.

 - Schmoozer
He makes friends at work - a plus in the Athletic career since you need a good relationship with your team.

 - Athletic
A plus in the Athletic career, who'd have guessed?

 - Mean Spirited
Can't leave him on autonomous or he'll tank his relationships with everyone ever. Def. a negative.

 - Diva
Similar to the above, no one likes someone who's all about themselves.

Felicia: 
 - Education Career
A very, very nice tier one which will make life easier going forward. A bit difficult on the starting ranks though, since keeping Sims happy in an overstuffed household is ... fun.

 - Slob
Excellent! Eating rotten food and not caring at all about the mess.

 - Couch Potato
Likes naps, generally not terrible; she's on her butt most of the time studying logic anyway.

 - Loves the Outdoors
Works for me, she'll be outside at the park leveling charisma.

 - Vehicle Enthusiast
Utterly neutral.

 - Loves the Cold
Same as loves the outdoors.

Danica: 
 - Journalism Career
Another strong tier-two, less awesome than Master Thief but still pretty boss.

 - Absent-Minded
Ugh, can't just fire and forget because then she'll forget.

 - Neurotic
Lots of LTRs now that symphonic is lifted - and lots of simple things to do, like washing dishes and cleaning counters. About the only time I'd say washing dishes is good to do with Sim labor is when they want to do it.

 - Brave
Eh, she might take on a burglar.

 - Disciplined
No martial arts, no point.

 - Childish
Keeps cropping up.

Zoe:
 - Politics Career
A prerequisite for travelling, it also lets you build anywhere you like, expanding your living quarters appropriately. More useful when business and architect are cleared. I have a lot of money to throw at building when I can finally build.

 - Slob
See above entry. Very nice.

 - Insane
She can talk to herself for fun and social. Not a bad trait by far.

 - Genius
Not bad, not as useful as it could be since she doesn't need logic.

 - Commitment Issues
Ouch. Ouuuch. I made her my heir before she got all her traits and this came up to bite me.

 - Snob
Eh. About as great as Diva. I don't like self-aggrandizers.

And lifts completed:

Master Thief
Hopelessness
Symphonic

After careful deliberation, I've decided to kill off Emil. He's not contributing anymore.

On Death

It's kind of a Harry Potter thing. (Spoilers!) Not only am I grooming Janie to die, but I'll be absolutely delighted if she dies at the exact right moment - which is to say, over Emil's weekend. Uncontrollable elders are bad enough - mourning uncontrollable elders can be a pain.

Speaking of which, Emily met an alien! Too bad he's an uncontrollable elder himself, I wouldn't mind a solid shot at Alien Tech.

Zoe might be able to get knocked up by him though, and then we just have to wait for the next alien to show up.

All the children are now teens, and the traits are a mixed bag. By far, the most annoying one will be Zoe's - since I wanted her to be the heir, Commitment Issues is a problem.

Danica got childish - which is all right, certainly not as bad as some, and Felicia is a vehicle enthusiast, which is pretty much straight neutral.

So that's a thing.

Right on time, Wednesday at noon, Janie croaks. Fantastic!

She's pretty amicable with the reaper. He's a swell guy, taking her from her torment.

She takes up a lot less space now.

Oh, and this happened before I could stop it:

Good going, Felicia. You show that reaper who's ... boss ... yeah.

Scolding

Or: One of the reasons I hate Generations.

For the first time since I got snow days back, all the children were sent to class.

Only problem is, of course, the teens - and their relationship with their parents. They're not allowed to go to class, and that causes their parents - or, well, the one who isn't in a death cage - to scold them, an interaction that can't be canceled. Maybe I don't want to be a good parent!

Part of why I don't bother to build relationship with the parents is, with Generations enabled, that relationship will tank right down the toilet the more days they miss. No one likes being scolded, least of all teens!

The other part is pretty much sheer laziness. I'm not a social person myself, so I often ignore my Sims' social need entirely.

I've had one of the teens torch the rations, so the teens aren't allowed to cook anymore. At least not until dear old dad gets old and incompetent. Then I won't trust him anywhere near the fridge.

Speaking of dear old dad: he's got three promotions to go, and some of them he's going to have to get while he's an elder - fortunately, he just hit ten athletics so he'll be able to continue working. I really, really want to see Symphonic lifted. Like, really. Symphonic is a tier 1 lift for a reason. I'd like to get spring back, and I'd really like to be able to lock wishes, especially since with six kids, I'll be lifting a lot of stuff in short order, meaning I'll have a lot of possibilities.

Janie still isn't dead - a fact I find increasingly annoying, but I'll live. When I booted up the game, for some reason Overwatch noticed that she's in a death cage, and assumed she wasn't supposed to be - I had to rectify that. Hopefully she dies before she turns elder - I don't want to have to mess around with convincing an uncontrollable elder to go into the death cage while she's starving, and I really don't want her to starve outside the death cage.

Overstuffed

I didn't plan the nursery very well.

None of the children are happy, because all of the toddlers are angry (and loud, for that matter). I'm also realizing that it's going to be really hard to keep everyone happy, and more importantly, busy, once the toddlers age up. The good news is - well, there's not a lot of good news, but the children will become teens before then, and can work on their athletic skill (and, with a recent rules change, charisma).

For once, Generations is a boon: after checking the mail, literally every single one of the children got an imaginary friend doll. That'll shut 'em up, and since the house is stuffed full, there's no chance of unwanted supernaturals invading.

This is literally the first time I've stuffed a house completely full, and it is something of a challenge.

I'll manage, though.

The children became teens with little incident; they developed decent traits this time.

Abigail:

Virtuoso
Genius
Light Sleeper
Artistic

Emily:

Hates the Outdoors
Virtuoso
Childish
Athletic

Jacob:

Loves the Outdoors
Schmoozer
Athletic
Mean Spirited

And the second set of triplets eventually grew into children:

Yes I failed to catch her playing pretend in time.

Felicia (the blonde):

Couch Potato
Loves the Outdoors
Loves the Cold

Danica (the bald kid):

Neurotic
Brave
Disciplined

Zoe (has black hair):

Slob
Insane
Genius

I've also decided to kill Janie off, as she's no longer necessary. This will take quite a while as she barely eats at all.

Callous as it is to say, she's superfluous to my needs, and I think eight sims is a bit too much for me. I'll be cutting down the family size in the future.

Once they've outlived their usefulness.

Make sure if you have Overwatch to turn off - temporarily - checking for stuck Sims. When it notes she hasn't moved, it'll move her someplace safe - exactly what I don't want.

I deleted the teenagers' IF dolls the moment they hit teen, but I'll let the children keep theirs a little longer.

One other thing: apparently some of the extra packages for Story Progression caused some pretty impressive stupidity. One of them caused all that paternity leave, and I think another eliminated snow days, since I immediately started seeing them after removing the extra packages.

Paternity

Aliens.

Man, they're intrusive. Emil's got the unexpected weight gain on his second abduction - but since he's not an heir or spare, he'll have to give it up. Annoying, a -5 moodlet, but whatever.

I feel kind of bad. I wasn't paying attention, so he spent the day:

Getting food poisoning because he ate rotten food and finished,
Having a baby,
and going to work.

Poor, poor Emil.

He can't catch a break, either. The next day he catches the flu - or whatever - from his kids.

So that's nice.

I decided to throw caution to the wind and have another set of babies. I didn't figure that anything bad would come of it.

I was very wrong. Three new babies, and he gets paternity leave again, five whole days of it. I've been playing with Generations on despite my better judgment, and apparently - after a quick search - paternity leave is a Generations feature.

I knew there were a number of reasons I despised Generations for apoc challenges ....

The proof is in the pictures, I suppose.

Note: After posting I discovered it wasn't Generations. Check the comments for details. It's an addon to Story Progression. -.-;

Children!

So, the triplets are now children.

This is problematic.

Due to my shoddy parenting skills, none of them developed any kind of good traits when aging into childhood.

Jacob:

Loves the Outdoors
Athletic
Mean-Spirited

Jacob on the left, Emily on the right.

Emily:

Virtuoso
Athletic
Hates the Outdoors

Abigail.

Abigail:

Artistic
Genius
Light Sleeper

It could be worse, I suppose. I've got Abigail working on Artist, though she'll need to make friends with an elder. Hm. Maybe I should leave that for a later generation?