Thursday, December 30, 2010

Chapter 7: Gnomes, Continued

Randi rises through the ranks of criminals. They trust her skills as a getaway driver, and then as a bagwoman. Eventually she has done enough to be called a true con artist. And then she is known, in whispered tones, as a henchman. A lackey of the emperor of evil himself. Or herself. No one is quite sure WHO the emperor of evil is, but everyone is sure that person is bad news.


Randi hasn't been arrested in a long time. She's too good. But while Fiona doesn't know much about her mother's career, she knows there's something about it she doesn't like. She gives Randi the typical glowering pout of teenage angst.


Leona, on the other hand, tries to learn from her mother's skills.


Not the best idea she's ever had.

A paparazzi waltzes over to snap pictures of Randi's epic ball-throwing abilities. Randi finds this threatening. While she herself is two stars, she has worked hard to keep contact with celebrities to a minimum. She doesn't want her daughters to catch what she calls "the fame virus."


I'm going to !@#$ing kill you! Randi's body language seems to be saying!


The paparazzi slowly lowers her camera and backs away.

Randy can hardly keep away from his garden, but tries to leave a little work for Leona each day, since Leona is developing a strange neurotic interest in food. She won't eat his hamburgers or macaroni & cheese anymore; she only consumes the direct produce of the garden. She knows where those potatoes and tomatoes have been.


Lesson one: gardening is best done in pajamas.


Every appliance you touch, Randy...


...Well, Leona needed to learn this skill anyway. (Recap: she wants to be an astronaut).


A bit meta.


"I want to get out of this house," Fiona tells the duck. "I swear these gnomes are watching me."


The laundry room, slash computer room, slash stereo room gets new wallpaper. Fiona ignores it, listens to the music and pretends she's at an awesome dance club, which Riverview doesn't have. A wish pops up in her mother's mind: detonate the stereo. Randi seriously considers it, but restrains herself.

In other news, Randi's boss Rhoda passes away, instantly sending her relationship with the boss down to "bad." No new boss appears on her relationship panel, but we can be sure one is there... lurking.


The gang wanted Randi to learn sim-fu. A book picked up at the consignment shop helped, but to get to the desired green belt, she must search on the Internet for more techniques. Unfortunately all the websites tell her to go to China.

Since even at orange belt Randi knows more sim-fu than any other worthless criminal in Riverview, she is quickly promoted to evil sidekick. Though she finally makes enough money to live on, and she's so very close to being an awesome supervillain, she doesn't enjoy her work anymore. Rhoda's death sent the criminals into petty arguing, thus spoiling the work environment.

 "WHO BROKE THE DAMN BATHTUB AGAIN, RANDY?"


"The gnome!" Randy cries. "I swear!"

While Leona stays inside reading up on various skills she may need later in life, Fiona gets a job at the spa, serving drinks to people. Oddly enough, the now-teenaged Cleveland Ivanov was attracted to the same part-time job. He and Fiona rekindle their fairweather childhood friendship.


Chatting on the phone about how much the boss sucks, I presume.

Distracted from work, Randi remembers what's actually important in life.


And then the kids get home and the paparazzi appears.


Fiona is an odd duck, inviting her school (and work!) friends over all the time after school, even though she must leave immediately to attend to her job. Today Fiona invites over Cleveland before skipping off to work.


Cleveland apparently decides to skip work today and dance with Leona.

During a major thieving operation, Randi secures some of the loot for herself. Nothing like ensuring your own raises! She knows whatever is in this bag is worth at least 1000 simoleans. When Randi gets home, she eagerly takes a peek inside, and... it's...


...of course it is.

______________________

Other notes: Fiona and Cleveland have the exact same job and so I assume the exact same hours, so I'm not sure why the game allowed him to stick around. In my experience, sims invited over will zip away the second they have to "be somewhere else".

I intend to add a night club to the town at some point down the line, but R&R's kids will likely just have to suffer through Riverview being a boring small town for their entire lives because I am lazy.

Randi is truly a gnome-magnet. She's found no less than four magic laundry gnomes. She invented one. And now she stole one. I sold the extra laundry gnomes since those are my least favorite.

Also, I love childish sims. =) I've had many childish sims, and it's always amusing to note that they don't all display the trait in the same way. One childish sim will play with toys, while another will constantly be at the mirrors making stupid faces and annoying sounds. I also once had a childish sim who preferred to "scare" her family members every five minutes. One would think every childish sim would do all of these things, but no, many sims seem to have a favorite hangup, and rarely do the other actions.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Chapter 6: Teenagers

TODAY IS THE DAY.




The day Leona grows rocket boots.


Leona leaves her kid-clothes behind. From now on, she will dress with taste.


Not to be forgotten, Fiona eventually gets out of bed and gives her new teen self a makeover as well.
"No GNOME is gonna look gaudier than ME."


LOOK OUT, WORLD!


An upstairs area is finally added, complete with a second bathroom and storage for cribs and toys. Fiona and Leona don't seem willing to part with their toys just yet (sentimental value!), but maybe someday.


Randi puzzles. "You know what this house really needs?"

Ah yeah. Pac-Man lights.

Leona's father made those organic sandwiches when she was a toddler. But they still taste good...

________________________________________

Notes: Randi finally received her promotion to Henchman, so the challenge for generation one has been met. The logical thing to do now is guide Leona towards skills that will help her in her future military career. Ideally, she should reproduce quickly so her parents can help with the baby.

I'm still working on Randy's LTW, hoping to purchase Collection Helper.

Leona inherited her father's "innocent" face (which looks a bit smug on a woman), while Fiona got her mother's angry eyebrows. Randi's hair and Fiona's hat makes them hard to spot, but Fiona doesn't wear the hat to bed so inevitably the eyebrows will show up in a pic later.

Leona is now neurotic, handy, eccentric and ambitious. Fiona is eccentric, childish, brave and over-emotional.

Chapter 5: Warning Signs


With the twins now able to walk, talk, bathe, eat and sleep on their own, Randi and Randy have some time to cuddle. Or sleep.


Randy sees a meteor fall from the sky and instructs Randi to fetch it. The huge space rock sells for thousands, so they can finally afford to install a new bedroom for the girls.

The flames help Fiona sleep faster.


Leona's already wearing camo. Hurray.


The twins squabble over everything from school to food to clothes to toys, but they still spend most of their time together.

"Wanna go see Tron?"



Randy may have a super high handiness level, but he still magically breaks everything he touches.



Fiona checks the label on her breakfast. Is she getting enough nutrition?




Fiona wanted to find a rock. This diamond will do.


The neurotic sister begins to suspect she's being spied on by the Russians. This is terrifying, but it's also the night Leona makes up her mind to become an astronaut herself.


"You play with your dollies, Fio. I'm going to play with this robot."



The house has changed a lot. Randy even got his chess table.

Randi does laundry once. She finds a bear gnome in the dryer. "I will never do laundry again!" she shouts. "Never!"

A neighbor, Anita Lobos, notices Randy's prodigious gardening. Randy is happy to sell some of his extra produce; he hopes she'll call again. While Anita and Randy chat in the town park, his daughters are left alone in the house to pick up the housework slack.


It's amazing how much can break in two minutes.


Randy invents a new hair style.

Nothing a quick bath won't fix.

"Another horrible waste of water," he laments.


Inspired by her father's failure, Leona tries her hand with the magic screwdriver.


And the hammer from hammerspace.

She'll be re-inventing the dog toy in no time.


Such a peaceful neighborhood.


It needed azaleas, though.


Mrs. Archer is getting really stressed from all the working out. Where is her promotion?!

Up yours, Riverview Gymnasium!


BOOM! Ahahaha! Criminal and scientific, just how Randi likes it.


After collecting the scrap, she goes home to make out with Randy.


Astronaut training.


Well that was tiring.


R&R both want their daughters to be on the honor roll. Fiona decides she'd rather be super popular, and for that she needs a boyfriend.

Cleveland Ivanov tells Fio his favorite color is blue.... like her hair.

But Fiona doesn't seem very impressed.

Like his grandmother, little Cleveland is a vampire, and that's rather off-putting for this elf kid.