Chapter 79: Calm

The living room suffers through new wallpaper again.

Fischer decorates his bedroom with items that remind him of world travel.

He hasn't gotten over Sun. They hadn't known each other for very long, so he tells himself he shouldn't be this torn up over a crazy whirlwind relationship, but his neurotic nature tells him that this event in his life was significant, an indicator of how things will go for him in the future.

Fischer feels lonely already.

Kipp doesn't understand her dating troubles, either.

"Look at this, Janet. I'm tough and awesome. The guys should be all over me."

Janet sighs as Kipp follows up by playing with the toy boat that originally belonged to child Sifton.

When Kipp leaves their house to go home, she and Janet find Arthur jamming in the front yard.

"He used to do that, like, in the daytime," Janet says. "Grandpa was practically raised by humans so I think he has some kind of psychological must-spite-sun issue."

Arthur looks more like a grandpa the next time we see him, at Kipp's birthday party.

Make a wish.

Way to almost be late for the whole thing, Ashby.

Kipp's father Tristan is not here, given Rex's reputation for beating the shit out of people.

Instead of joining the cheering, Pavel hangs out in the living room with Lorenzo and Iago. Old age took Pavel completely by surprise. He never had children. Given the incredible number of his brother Martin's descendants running around, he's kind of glad he didn't.

With that haircut, elderly Lorenzo looks almost exactly like his father, Hawk, looked in old age.

Kipp becomes a woman.

Fischer, stop hogging the picture.

That's better.

Iago is horrified to see his sister with gray hair.

Tam is going out with Felicia now. Yesterday that news hit Kipp like the end of the world, but today it seems like teenage nonsense. Who knows how long those two will even be together?

Any length of time is too long for Javier. No one is good enough for Felicia, you know. Who does Tam think he is?

Your incense holders are not safe from the governor.

Rio invites his niece to join him in the music industry, where she could turn her wealth into fame and more wealth if she wanted to. But Kipp wants to be a police officer.

It's Fischer and Sun's daughter's birthday as well.

"Her name is Yasu," Fischer announces. "It's a Japanese name, but I like it. It means calm."

"What, did you find that on the Internet?" Rex criticizes.

"Yes." Fischer is unashamed.

"I think it's a pretty name," Ashby says, glowering at her husband.

The festivities are cut short by the latest Sunder scheme at the criminal warehouse: to steal all the city's clouds.

Unfortunately this backfires horribly and Ashby has to deal with it. She finds criminals drowning like rats in the basement and pulls them out.

And another fire. Why even put on a protective suit for this?

"Move it!" she calls to her cousin, Arron. "Get out, you nit-wit!"

Arron just moved into a starter home with his wife and two children, and now it's up in flames.

Old age descends upon Rex. But at least his hair lives on.

Fischer worries constantly about Yasu. Will she be teased, being of Chinese decent? Feel lonely, as an only child? Rejected, because she has no mother? Fischer doesn't think he can secure a wife to stand in for Yasu's mother any time soon, so he's considering other options.

Like adoption. This social worker carelessly leaves the baby basket in the Archers' foyer and walks away.

Fischer liberates baby Xue from the basket.

She's of Chinese origin as well. Fischer may not be able to give his daughter a mother, but he can give her a sister and a playmate.

Fischer isn't sure what kind of a past Xue had, but she's a happy and lively toddler.

Meeting strangers does not seem to bother her.

Fischer has re-done the nursery a bit, replacing the cribs and rugs and re-painting the walls.

Xue is a toddler virtuoso, if there is such a thing, and goes straight to the toy xylophone.

Fischer longs to be out at clubs being social, but something holds him back, keeping him a loner. He alternates his time between painting...

...and raising his daughters.

He doesn't focus much on his "career," though Rex insists he should try his best at everything he does.

Some aspects of child-rearing are more glamorous than others.

Fischer worries about his father, who won't slow down.

At Fischer's insistence, Rex pursues other hobbies, such as gardening. He reads up on the subject before attempting to tackle the mess in the back yard.

Ashby's hobbies worry Fischer about as much as her job does. A woman of this age shouldn't be straining herself.

Rex visits Kipp. Kipp moved in with Tristan, who was alone and frail in his old age. With her inheritance money she bought them a nicer house in the historic district; when Tristan is gone there will be room for her to start a small family.

She's a cop now. Rex snaps a picture for posterity.

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Etc.: Yasu was the name of an evil sorceress I had in an RPG.

Sims-Yasu naturally inherited Rex's hair and Fischer's blue eyes, if you wondered. I toyed with the idea of changing Fischer's hair to match his father's, and mentioned it on the forums, but the mutation hair grew on me so I decided against changing it.

 I am not trying to make a political statement with Xue, or anything like that. Fischer adopted a toddler, and I went into CAS and changed that toddler to match a random Chinese sim. I have pictures of the adult sim Xue is cloned from somewhere; she was up for consideration to be Yasu's mother, but I discovered she was married so dropped it. Sun and Fischer had more in common anyway.

Then it turned out Sun was married too, but Sun's marriage did not seem to weigh on her conscience in the slightest!

Rex is still working on his LTW to max logic and athletic. He has one athletic point to go, so it's safe for me to give him a new "hobby." Ashby's LTW is to save 30 sims. I don't know if she'll be able to or not. Apparently that's a tough one to complete without cheating. She gets a lot of rabbit hole jobs, which do not count on the saving sims tally even though messages pop up saying she saved people in heroic fashion. Fischer's LTW is to max painting and writing. Kipp's was something in the police field. I had her quit her job at the spa and then moved her out. SP sent her on the path to her LTW automatically.

My roll for generation 10 is couple, two kids, inventor primary career, architect secondary career, awesome, and tattoo addict. I didn't roll for heir. I decided it's Yasu. I love that she'll be an inventor, because many of the Archers have been eccentric inventors. As for architect... well... I've never tried that career. I hope it's cool.

I've gone around town forcing married couples to have male children, ensuring a future mate for Yasu. Hopefully. My town is just so incredibly messed up at this point, I no longer cared about "cheating" and forcing those kids to be male.

Fischer has one kid left to go. Originally I was going to send him to have kids with a French or Egyptian woman, but after what happened with Sun, I will probably let him adopt the third child.