Sims 3: Zodiac Challenge - Chapter 1, The Rat

Since my last update, I've been looking over the list for what upcoming generations will need (remember, I'm basing my challenge on this and this), and it's led me to rethink what Haven's life goal would be.  I was thinking Leader of the Free World, but, on reflection, I prefer that for Dragon (which, incidentally, is my own year).  Plus, the Ox's motivations are about finding love and distinguishing herself from her family, and less about her own ambition.  For those reasons, I've decided that Haven's goal will actually be to become a 'Jack of All Trades', and rise to at least level 5 in four careers (and 6 in one).  I also want to build her a home based on Green Gables (or, rather, based on this), because I've been watching Anne with an E this week, and it seems like a nice cosy little family home.  I realise that the house is literally there for downloading, but I enjoy the building process.  Plus, I kind of want to put it on a hill, if I can.  In other news, I'm writing this post bit-by-bit as I play, not in hindsight like with others.  So if the tone is different, that's why.


Gift-giving day has passed, which, in the Sims, means that spring is coming.  Jake hosted a big family party.  Rosie turned up in her swimsuit (because she's insane), and Silas finally got to meet the rest of Haven's family!  His face says he has concerns.  Serena asked her boss/sister-in-law for a raise, but the promotion option didn't come up - maybe it won't for the final level?  Daryl - the eldest cousin - has married Elizabeth, the girlfriend who made-out with Jasper, after she got pregnant.  I considered having someone persuade them to break-up, but I think I'll just let it play out instead.

After the party, Rosie immediately went home and married her girlfriend, Lindsey.  None of the family had met her yet, so Jake went off to judge her suitability.  Lindsey moved in with Rosie and Jasper, so she was now a lot easier to find.  Lindsey was at work, so Jake spent a bit of time catching up with his only son, who is still wearing his graduation robes.  Jasper appears to be complaining about living with Rosie.

I realised that, since Lindsey is now family, I can view her traits on the family tree, so I didn't actually need to go over and meet her.  Still, Jake is already there, so might as well.  Lindsey is excitable (like Serena), a genius (like Jake), a computer whiz, and dislikes children and the outdoors.  Generally, she's pretty suitable for Rosie and thus now has the family blessing.  I did want to edit her style a bit, but I realised that the cropped look she has is actually the only natural hair look for black women-sims, which seems a bit limiting.  Jake her a pregnancy book as a gift, since he was carrying it around in his inventory anyway, and Serena had a new want to be a grandmother, ever since her eldest daughter got married.  Oh, and trivia; Jake spent his childhood reading that book over and over from cover to cover, for no apparent reason.  He just liked it, I guess.  Or maybe it was just that we were too poor to buy new ones for him.


Serena finally got her promotion to the top of the music career!  And on her one-year anniversary of working there, too!   Just in time - she ages up tomorrow.  Speaking of aging up, Libby has 4 days to go and Haven has 14, which is very odd, since they're twins.  I know that, at one point, all of Haven's lifetime happiness rewards disappeared, so I'll assume it's Haven that's wrong and age them both up in a few days.  That's exciting!  Plus, I know I moved Silas in only a few days before Haven grew from child to teen, so there shouldn't be two weeks between them.



Because of the age gap, I messed about with the woohooer mod to allow Silas and Haven to carry on dating, despite one being a young adult and the other being a teen.  A side-effect of this is that Libby can now also interact romantically with adults, and she's decided that she really, really, likes Squall Leonheart.   Squall Leonheart, one of her dad's old friends.  She went to school with his and Selphie's four kids, and he's also in a relationship with Silas' foster-mom, Mendy (the random adult I put in his house so he was allowed to exist as a teen).  Still, the heart wants what it wants, and I am HERE for the drama.  So I let them risky-woohoo...and now Libby is pregnant.  As a teenager.  To a man 7 days younger than her father.  Still, at least Serena will get the grandchild she wants!   I'm not sure how that will affect their birthday - can pregnant sims age up?  If not, I guess I'll have to wait until the baby's born before they age into young adults.  I'd rather not, because I want to observe this baby as a background NPC, not one of my playable characters, which means I need to age Haven up and move her out.

...I checked and Libby shouldn't automatically age until the baby is born.  I might try to have them both age up anyway.  I'll save first.  Their birthday should be Love Day. Haven went out for breakfast with Silas, and Libby invited Squall over.  He did not respond well to her romantic advances, so they argued and he ran away.  Her pregnancy popped at some point during this and her body disappeared, because EA did not create maternity wear for teenagers.  I've got no option to tell anyone about the pregnancy, presumably, again, because of the teen thing.  Rosie has invited us all to a party, so maybe we'll go to that and Haven and Libby can age up there.  At the party, I also got a picture of Lindsey with her new hair!  I assume she is thinking about Rosie.

I aged Haven up, and then saved because she had stupid hair and my game has a tendency to crash when I enter CAS or outfit planning.  Unfortunately, it was only after that that I learned I can't age Libby up, even though the option is there.  It auto-cancels.  Oh well; Haven will have a baby at some point, and that will even them out.  I can always invite Libby over for the young-adult to adult birthday and make sure they're the same age then.

After the party, Haven went over to Silas' place and proposed.  They'd just got the 'Faithful' moodlet, and it seemed time.  He said yes!  Cue telling her parents, trying on her mother's wedding dress and arranging a bachelorette party for later that evening, before heading off to her graduation.  Libby left the graduation early, because Squall called and invited her out on a date.  Bold move.  He then didn't bother to turn up, so Libby went for lunch and a massage at the spa.

Libby was late for Haven's bachelorette party.  She'll also graduate later than Haven and missed prom, which makes sense for the teen pregnancy storyline (Haven also missed prom, because she aged up the day before).  I invited all of Haven's aunts, sisters, and adult female cousins (of which there is only one, Barbara).  I've never had a sim bachelorette party before!  Haven asked her dad to make a speech before he went off to bed, and then they ordered pizza.  I am not a big fan of Haven's bachelorette hair, but the game wouldn't let me change it.  A stripper showed up, and Libby was really into him.  They woohooed in the shower and then Libby went into labour.  Jake was awake by then, so he took her to hospital, just like he ended up taking one of his sisters a few (sim) years ago.  Meanwhile, Serena was passed out on the floor, along with her niece and sister in law.

Squall came home from the hospital with Libby and the baby - a girl, Skye, who is brave and good like her father (I didn't get a choice, the game chose) - and Jake argued with him until he ran away.  I aged Libby up into an adult at this point, while the row was going on.  Meanwhile, Haven called Silas and asked him to meet her at the church.  I like to think the conversation went something like "Babe, I have got to get out of this house!  Libby not only slept with dad's friend and had his baby, she was late to my bachelorette party and woohooed with the stripper when she did show up!  And then she went in labour!  She does not like anyone else having any kind of attention whatsoever!  Babe, let's just get married and move out, just you and me.  I know you're not happy with Mendy [his foster-mom] and it's not like we could invite her and Libby to a party together, what with Squall being Mendy's boyfriend and Libby's baby daddy.  Let's just do it now!"

Anyway, he said yes, and they had a little private ceremony, in the church where her parent's married, in their normal clothes.  It was sweet!  I'll be moving Haven and Silas out immediately, to the adorable little house that I've bought for them - I'll just need to liquidate some of our belongings, so they can afford the 13,200 upfront cost.  Theoretically, I could sell Haven's bedroom stuff, but I have an idea that Skye will end up living there, unless she and Libby move in with the stripper (who, as a NPC, doesn't actually have a home).  Did I mention that his name is Robin Banks?  I could also wait until Monday (it's now Friday), when all the properties they own will have cash to be collected, but I don't want to.   Haven and Silas want to start their future as soon as possible.  

In other news, Libby popped a wish to get married - to anyone - after Skye was born and she aged up, and Serena and Jake both had a wish to have 5 grandchildren.  I don't know if that's going to happen, because Jasper is bad at relationships (even when his sister isn't ruining them), and Rosie's wife dislikes children, but maybe Libby will step up even more.  Haven will have fewer children - 4 and 5 have been a lot - and I don't think I'll start on that until she and Silas are both into proper adulthood, rather than young adulthood and/or until they get a wish for a child.

Sims 3: Zodiac Challenge - Chapter 1, The Rat

Since my last update, I finished teaching Rosemary and Jasper to drive.    Then, Rosemary decided to prank the school by releasing all the frogs from the science lab, and Jasper decided to make out with his cousin's girlfriend in front of his mother and aunt, so I decided it made sense to send them both to boarding school.  Plus, I felt like sending his kids to boarding school made sense for the Rat, which Jake is embodying.  That seems like something someone who cares about status would do.  All of that happened shortly after Haven and Libby aged up into teenagers.  So, after some hair and make-up editing, here is Haven!  She's still ambitious, clumsy, and artistic, but now she's also charismatic, since I figured that would be helpful for her character arc.  As the Ox, her life goals are to not get along with her siblings, marry her high school sweetheart, and go into politics.  Because both she and I are ambitious, she will become Leader of the Free World.  Anyway, with all of that in mind, Haven's first goal is to find a high school sweetheart...and, done!

This is Silas, a sim who I did make intending him to be Haven's soul mate.  She's on a strict timescale for meeting a partner, so I felt justified in creating him, but it did take some of the fun out of it so I won't do that again.  I did create another teenager in the household that I thought Rosie might like, but she did not.  However, the adult I had to put in the household did cause some drama.  She broke up Squall and Selphie, who have had three kids together, somewhere in the background of my legacy family town.  However, Squall and Selphie's daughter is dating one of Rinoa and Zell's sons.  It's almost like the sims are mirroring the themes of Final Fantasy 8, so that's nice. 

A little after Jasper and Rosie left, Serena and Jake won another surprise holiday, so they went away for two days, leaving Liberty and Haven unsupervised.  So, Haven and Libby through a teen party, with only a couple of guests, and their two love interests ending up staying the night (in Rosie and Jasper's abandoned beds).  Haven asked Silas to prom, which was the next night.  Libby tried to ask her crush, but she got rejected.  Later, that guy would grow up to date their cousin, Leo's daughter Barbara.  The family's grown a lot - here are a few family trees.

 During prom, Haven and Silas had their first kiss and started going steady.  Haven was also crowned prom queen!  This doesn't quite fit with the idea I had of her as the underdog, but then, she's only actually supposed to feel left out in her own family, therefore seeking approval elsewhere.  So it kind of works.  Libby got rejected by her crush and didn't win anything.  :(  She started snubbing Haven after that.  After the prom, Haven ran outside to investigate a strange light and got abducted by aliens.  Luckily, the police showed up because it's illegal for teenagers to be abducted after curfew, and she was returned.  She didn't even get into trouble because Jake and Serena were still away.

Shortly after this, Jake and Serena got back from their holiday and Rosie and Jasper aged up into young adults and came home from boarding school!  I played around a bit with Rosie's hair, but went back to her ponytail shortly after this.  Jasper had had long hair when he aged up into a child, but I cut it for him.  He'd grown it back while at boarding school, apparently, so I left it.

Rosie and Jasper had some business to take care of before moving out.  Firstly, they registered for the musician and science careers respectively and Rosie changed her last name to Masemame, so no one would attribute her success as a musician to her mother.  Speaking of Serena, she's not quite top of the Rock career yet.  She's on level 9 and I think I can make it in one more shift, which is lucky because she's four days away from ageing up and the life fruits aren't growing because it's winter.  Jasper's last bit of business was to check in on online dating (and going on a couple of dates when he ran into those women around town) and then calling his high school girlfriend (who is now also a young adult) to woohoo with her before dumping her.  Jasper is a clumsy, flirtatious, commitment-phobic, loner - he's kind of a dick.

Rosie and Jasper moved out together, and I followed the car to their new house (mostly because I wasn't sure how the 'kick out' option worked, and I wasn't sure if they actually got a home or disappeared into the ether).  They ended up in a house nicer than ours, and I sent Jake over to visit.  Also, Jasper has been wearing his graduation robes for about a week now - he really likes them.

Haven has about a week before aging up, and I had a few goals.  Firstly, to learn to drive.  Serena finished teaching Libby while Jake taught Haven, and then they all went over to Jasper and Rosie's new place to visit, along with Leo and Marie (you remember, Jake's younger siblings), who happened to be nearby.

I'd had a pop-up that both Jasper and Rosie had girlfriends.  Jasper was making out with his outside the house when we showed up, so his two younger sisters decided to introduce themselves.

Another of Haven's goals was to make 20 friends, since this is a challenge for the charisma skill and will stop her friendships decaying (I get bored of maintaining them).  However, in the process, she learned that Jasper's girlfriend was a mooch.  She became best friends with her, took her out for lunch, and gently suggested that she (the girlfriend, who's name I've forgotten) and Jasper were better off apart, and the girlfriend agreed.  This made Jasper Haven's enemy.  I knew that would happen, because that's how Rosie and Bianca became enemies, when Rosie persuaded Daryl to break up with her.  It worked though, because Haven's not supposed to get on with her siblings.  Plus, check out the description below (from here).

 Haven is hard-working, honest, and prejudiced - she wouldn't approve of a mooch.  She's also bad at communication and stubborn.  In short, exactly the sort of person to make an enemy of her big brother while trying to protect him and the family name.  Sadly, just before I finished playing yesterday a notification popped up that they'd gotten back together.  I might have Jake ask Jasper to break up with her this time, and the same for Rosie's girlfriend, since I've not had the chance to vet her properly.  They've just gotten engaged, and I'm not sure she can live up to the family name either.

After achieving her charisma goal, Haven started physical training because, tbh, I wanted to see if I could actually change a sim's weight.  Jake trained her following his own 6am workout - having mastered the athletic skill a while ago - and she got 5 skill points in one go.

Speaking of Jake, I'm quite pleased with how well his story fits with this description.  He's a genius, he's mastered charisma, he's ambitious, and he used all of that to become a successful businessman.  He's definitely wordy - he's a successful author.  He's also pretty stubborn - he followed his heart and not the story-arc I originally decided for him.

Sims 3: Zodiac Challenge - Chapter 1, The Rat

Since my last update, Jake and Serena have had another set of twins, Haven and Liberty (again, random generator), who are now children, while Jasper and Rosemary are now teenagers.  Jasper and Rosemary spent most of their childhood studying together and playing with their cousins.  Most of the younger generation are related to them, which is a bit of a problem when it comes to finding people to date and, later, to marry.  So I made three families consisting of one adult and a bunch of unrelated teenagers and kids.  This turned out to be way too many - there's a huge queue to get into school every day now.  I moved two of the families out, but they're still around town and it hasn't solved the problem.

Jake's been doing most of the childcare, because he has shorter work hours and Serena was trying to max out her music skill.  She's not made a lot of career progress, despite successfully maxing out the guitar.  Firstly, she missed a day of work when Jasper and Rosemary aged up into children because Rosie's candles started a fire, so that tanked her performance.  Before it had fully recovered, she went on maternity leave.  When Jasper and Rosemary first became teenagers, the adults were offered a 'surprise holiday', so they could throw a raucous teenage party, and that stopped her from going to work as well.  Still, Jacob successfully raised his skills enough to plant a life fruit plant, so it's not like she'll run out of time.  

Rosemary got the ambitious and party animal traits as a teenage.  She also asked her cousin, Daryl, to break up with Bianca Heartilly-Dincht, mostly to see if he would, and then decided to egg Bianca's house.  I've decided she's going to be a super-popular mean girl.  She also looks a lot like her grandmother, Yuriko.  Jasper got his mother's red hair, and almost every girl in town finds him attractive, despite the fact that he's a commitment-phobic loner.  He got on well with a girl at their teenage party and invited her to prom a few days later.  There, they shared their first kiss and began to go steady.  Rosemary and Jasper were crowned Prom King and Queen, despite Rosie showing up in her bathing suit (because of her 'insane' trait).  Jasper now knows how to drive, while Rosie only mostly knows - I'll have to get Jacob to finish teaching her, when they're both in a good mood.  Rosie hasn't yet found anyone she's attracted to.  I did like the idea of her making her imaginary friend real and ending up with him - most popular girl in school ends up with a mysterious stranger no one's heard of  who is actually her childhood imaginary friend who's the only one who really understands her made real sounds like a great story arc to me - but he identifies as gay (I think that's due to the woohooer mod I added) and she's not attracted to him.  I think Jasper, on the other hand, will have a string of girlfriends due to his mysterious attractiveness combined with his commitment phobia. 

I plan to spend Rosemary and Jasper's teenage years training up the skills they'll need to meet their life goals.  Rosie wants to be a hit-movie composer, so acing the other branch of the music career to her mother.  She'll need music and logic for that.  I also plan to change her last name back to Jacob's original name, of Masemame, rather than Ursine, which Jacob took from Serena when they married.  I figure, if you're going to follow in your mother's footsteps, you don't want people blaming it on your name.  Jasper wants to be a robot-creature creator cross-breeder, so he'll need gardening, handiness, and fishing skills for that.  His clumsiness - which Haven also shares - is useful because they keep breaking stuff and fixing it is good training for him.  I've also got him tending the life fruit plants, as well as growing some of his own vegetables.  I should build a pond for them, so he can practice at home.  I'm hoping that getting them started in their careers, with high traits and their natural ambition will leave them to naturally achieve those goals on their own when I stop actively playing them.  Right now, I'm thinking I'll build them a nice shared flat - maybe edit Jacob's bachelor pad - and move them out together shortly after they reach young adulthood.  Rosemary identifies as straight, but I'm not opposed to the idea of making her a lesbian (now I think about it, the imaginary friend might be female, I'm not sure how you tell).  Really, I want someone who shares her 'insane' trait.

Haven, the third child, is artistic, ambitious, and clumsy, while Liberty, the youngest, is an ambitious, friendly, light-sleeper.  Liberty has also inherited Jake and Yuriko's dark hair, while Haven's is light brown, possibly from Serena's parents or from Stiles McGraw, Jake's father.  I've decided that Haven is the heir, the Ox who feels out of place in her ambitious family and will marry her teenage sweetheart and become president.  She isn't the eldest, like Rosemary, who reminds Jacob of his beloved mother.  She's not the son, Jasper, who has Serena's hair (which Jacob still likes; I asked him to rate Serena's attractiveness and he gave her 10/10).  She's not the baby, who also has Jacob and Yuriko's hair.  She's a brown-haired middle child who doesn't stand out (though I may have to get her the change traits lifetime reward, because I'm not sure artistic fits - I chose it at random before deciding she would be my heir).  She'll only really need the charisma skill, which I can't teach her in childhood, though I have got her making friends already.  Getting 20 friends stops your relationships from decaying, which is really handy.  I'll need to give her 'hopeless romantic' as a teenager, for the challenge, and I think 'artist' and 'clumsy' might become schmoozer and party animal when I can change them (well, I could change them now, with cheats, but I feel weird doing that).  Both Haven and Libby were very cute at the raucous teenage party - they went and found their two eldest cousins and asked for bedtime stories.  They're both August's sons.  Leo's eldest, Barbara, is also a teenager now.

I don't have any real plans for Liberty.  Maybe I should give her the Artistic trait, or just make her an artist anyway.  Maybe she'll be a business-woman, like Jake.  I think I like that better.  Speaking of Jake, he now owns the company he works for, as well as the diner, and shares in the bookstore, grocery store, and spa (my last post said they had shares in both restaurants, but I was confusing one with the grocery store).  Jake is pretty much just reading books, making money, and doing whatever he feels like.  He did get a want for another baby after Haven and Liberty aged up, but the constant maternity leave had already ruined Serena's career enough.  Also, I got Jake and Serena to share secrets.  He was worried that his wardrobe wasn't always flattering.  Hers is below.

Sims 3: Zodiac Challenge - Prologue, Starlight Herself

I've booted up Sims 3 so I can play a legacy challenge instead of revising.  This one is based on the Chinese zodiac, and is inspired by these two posts; TheYayToast, DeadlyFang.  My challenge will be 14 generations, beginning with the incarnation of the stars themselves and ending with the Cat, the rejected sign.  I'm writing this halfway through the Rat, so I have few images.  Oh, also, I bought my Pc in 2013, so I've had to set all the image qualities right down low.  I've been playing the game so much that I've just bought my first expansion packs - seasons and generations.  I'm using Nraas's story progression mod and a few others which I'll talk about when I come to the point where I installed them.  I'm playing with a longer lifespan, though I'm still experimenting with exactly what I want.  A lot of the generations call for multiple kids, and I like to see how they turn out, so the baby, toddler, and childhood stages are a little shorter, while adulthood is a little longer.  Oh, because of exams/uni, I also block the game except for a 90 minute period every day.

I created Yuriko as a young adult, with the goal of being surrounded by family - raising five children from babies to teenagers.  She was a good, friendly, family-orientated, hopeless romantic who loved the outdoors.  I made her a little cabin in the woods - one room with an outhouse, right up near the waterfall.  She fell in love with Stiles McGraw and conceived Jacob, but he had a girlfriend, Emma Hatch.  Yuriko didn't really understand why this was a problem - stars are poly and pansexual - but they broke up.  She also didn't understand why Stiles was so reluctant to give her a baby - surely it is the goal of all beings to procreate?  After they broke up, she had two children, August and Leo, with Malcolm Landgrabb, and adopted Marie and Lucy, as part of increasing her understanding of sim-kind.  She worked in the grocery store for a while, but earned most of her money through gardening and fishing.

As Yuriko's - and yes, I know I used a Japanese name for a Chinese-inspired challenge, and I do know those cultures are different - children grew older, I began searching for my heir.  The first generation is The Rat - "a poor but quick-witted individual who has eyes for riches".  It was difficult to raise five children, so I didn't get to pick many traits and the game made Jake a genius.  He was also the cutest, most serious little child, so I chose him to focus on.  It made sense to me that, as the eldest, he had begun with the most resources which were depleted as the house became more crowded, and that this would be motivation to get rich.  He made straight As, got a job as soon as he could, wrote a book called "Too Many Babies!", and beat a couple of ranked chess opponents.  As his brothers grew older, August was sporty and Leo was arty.  I'm trying to get a portrait of each generation, and Leo was able to paint portraits of his mother and Jake.  Jake moved out as a young adult, just after his sisters grew to become teenagers.  He's a perfectionist, schmoozer, clumsy, ambitious genius.

Yuriko died on Jake's first visit home, and that's when I began building a family graveyard.  I also put a custom church - White Chapel Hill - on the lot across the road.  I'm undecided about whether to put Stiles or Malcolm in there.

Jake got promoted basically every day and was able to make his lifetime goal very, very quickly.  He'd started working out as a teenager - August was athletic, so we got the equipment for him, and then I worried that Jake was getting a bit pudgy - and he was asked to train Serena Ursine, as a skills challenge.  It was love at first sight and they started dating.  After a few weeks, he proposed and asked Serena to move in.  The problem there is the terms of the challenge.  The rat should;

• Start the game with low funds
• Join the business career
• Have Ambitious and Materialistic traits
• Marry for status instead of love
• Have four potential heirs

4 is the sticking point.  Firstly, it's hard to define what 'status' means in the sims.  Most families are rich, and the Landgrabbs and Goths had no eligible daughters.  My original plan was to have Jake criticise Serena's faults - from his perfectionist qualities, over the fact that she's a virtuoso who wants to be a star rather than having a 'serious' career, leading to their break-up.  I was then going to have Jake call his high school girlfriend Gwendolyn (I think, an auto-generated NPC Sim), drink a lot, conceive a child, and marry her.  They'd have a loveless marriage - he'd continue to drink a lot - and he'd resume his relationship with Serena when they were both older.  The first part of the plan worked out.  Serena quit her medical career, started working in music, got her first promotion and excitedly told Jake about it.  He responded by criticising her lack of ambition, she mocked his ambition, they argued and called off the engagement.  Then my time for the day ran out.

I felt so sad about it, all over the next day.  I didn't want Serena to find love with someone else.  I didn't want Jake to marry someone he wasn't even attracted to.  I didn't really want to continue playing if they couldn't be together, and happy.  I learned Gwen's other traits, and she was an insane kleptomaniac, which kind of worked for the society-wife-in-a-loveless-marriage storyline, but meh.  I decided to compromise, by which I mean, let Jake marry for love and carry on enjoying my game, but do my absolute best to achieve Serena's dream of becoming a star (I'm picturing like Adele-style).

Getting them back together was kind of darkly funny.  Jake mastered charisma pretty early on - a major factor in his business success - he could tell stories and jokes and charm her fairly quickly, but because he was still heartbroken, the speech bubbles implied that every punchline was "and then you broke my heart!".  She laughed anyway.  Serena proposed this time, so after their wedding my family name is 'Ursine'.  I kind of like it.  Also, custom content wedding outfit, and a bit of a make-over.  I DL'd a height slider mod, so my sims are different heights.  The ones who were alive when I installed it all stayed the same - except Jake and Serena, who I manually changed - but future generations should get a random value for it, and be realistically varied.  It kind of ruins the kissing animation, but I like how they all look together.

Incidentally, that's Lorelei Gilmore dancing with August in the background.  My world felt a bit empty, so I dropped in some random groups I DL'd years ago.  They include Lorelei, Rory, and Luke, and the cast of Final Fantasy VIII.  Quistis married an NPC, Zell and Rinoa got together, and Squall and Selphie are married and expecting their first children.  Jake has mastered charisma, and is now immediately friends with anyone he introduces himself to, and best friends if he stops for a chat.  He basically walks into a room and people swoon and say "what a guy!".  oh, and because of his career success, he's a partner in the bookstore and both restaurants.

Shortly after their wedding the baby want popped up for both of them.  Jake was hoping for a girl and Serena wanted a boy.  They had twins (after giving both fertility treatment; they'd already conceived, but it still worked), and I picked the first two traits with a random number generator.  Rosemary, the eldest, is an insane virtuoso, and Jasper is a clumsy (like his dad) loner (like his grandpa).  They both got imaginary friend dolls in the mail.  During their toddler-hood, Jake aged up and began having a mid-life crisis, but when it began suggesting things like "get a divorce" and "change jobs" I decided to consider it an illness and sent him to therapy.  I'm not yet decided whether Rosemary, Jasper, or one of the unborn will be the heir.  The next generation should be The Ox; "Raised in a cut throat family you have your parents ambition but a need to find love in your life that you didn’t get from your family". 

• Ambitious and Romantic traits
• Elope with your high school sweetheart
• Not close to/get along with any of your siblings
• Reach at least level 6 in career

I plan to give every child ambitious and romantic traits - which doesn't appear to be possible for babies, so I'll put those on when they age up - and I've decided that an imaginary friend is an acceptable substitute for eloping with a high school sweetheart.  The other post describes the Ox as "Dependable, ambitious, calm, methodical, born leader, patient, hardworking, conventional, steady, modest, logical, resolute, tenacious. Can be stubborn, dogmatic, hot-tempered, narrow-minded, materialistic, rigid, demanding", so I've decided their lifetime ambitious is to be president.  I don't think that's right for Jasper, the clumsy loner - who may well grow up to be a scientist, or perhaps an artist depending on his other traits - but it might be right for an insane musician like Rosemary.  We'll see what the other children end up with, and whether anything stands out.  The twins are still toddlers.  They've mastered the toddler skills and read some books, though they do like to play with their imaginary friend dolls rather than the toys.   In the background, August has gotten married to Sonya Hawley and they have two kids, Leo has two kids with Krista Goldstein - though they're not married and don't live together - and Lucy has one child with Miles Goldstein.  I moved August's family in with his dad, Malcolm Landgrabb, because the cabin in the woods was getting pretty crowded and a notification popped up that Malcolm was dying.

So, at the moment, I'm finding a candidate for my next heir.  I'm keeping Serena young with life fruits from Yuriko's still-thriving garden, since she was an adult when Jake was a young adult, and I want them both to see their children grow up.  Serena has just reached level 5 of the musician career, and is off maternity leave and at level 8 with the guitar, so that should hopefully go fairly quickly.  They've moved from Jake's bachelor pad to a bigger family home (I literally looked up blueprints for a 3-bedroom family home and built the house based on that), which I'm slowly furnishing as Jake's wages and money from his writing come in.  It's decorated with the greeting card photos they take at festivals and the portraits Leo painted, though I might move those to a mausoleum in my family graveyard soon, since I'm worried about forgetting to move them around.  I'm not sure when they'll have their next child; perhaps shortly before the twins age into teenagers.  They're not supposed to get on, and, for storytelling purposes, the idea of the twins being resentful of new children feels like it works better if they're a bit older.  They'll all have jobs as teenagers, so they won't be able to spend a lot of time together.

Cinderella Phenomenom - Guide to Best Answers

...Ooops...

I'm playing Cinderella Phenomenon, a romance game with five potential love interests. I like to give my main character a different name depending on which one I'm pursuing, so I don't feel like she's betraying the pure romance she had with whoever I went after yesterday. Yesterday, I decide to pursue Waltz, so I looked up some musical names. I clicked on one website which began blaring "WHAT TO NAME YOUR NEW BABY IS A VERY IMPORTANT DECI-". And it woke my boyfriend up. And I had much explaining to do.

 I went with Piper and got two achievements btw. That plotline is very sad, there were tears.