Welcome back to Already in Progress! I never know what to say in these introductions other than I’m very glad to see you, and I hope you like the new chapter.

So: I’m very glad to see you, and I hope you like the new chapter.

And now let’s rejoin our story: Already in Progress…

Hi, Sally! How’s it going?

SALLY: It’s going okay, thanks.

What are you up to?

SALLY: I’m working on a script.

A script?

SALLY: Uh-huh. I’m entering a contest to create a new TV show. If you win, they’ll shoot a pilot. If that goes well, they’ll pick it up.

Nice! I guess you’re spending a lot of time on that. Did you hire a nanny for Tamara?

SALLY (V.O.): No, when she was too little to take care of herself, she had a play station right here in the room with me. Still does, actually. So the show’s called Goldberg and Silent Lady. It’s about Aaron Goldberg, who’s sort of a cross between a lawyer and a detective, and his secretary-turned-partner Silent Lady. She doesn’t talk. It’s set in a once-upon-a-time world, if you accept “once upon a time” as being every time and no time all at once.

Well, good luck! Um, you said “when she was too little…” about Tamara?

SALLY (V.O.): Oh, yeah. She had a birthday. Isn’t she growing up cute? Oh! Speaking of cute, do you want to see some pictures?

I’d love to. But, um, what would you do if I had said no?

SALLY (V.O.): Shown them to you anyway, of course.

SALLY (V.O.): Okay, so here’s Tamara learning to talk. She got “Mommy” down right away, and she learned to talk so fast! I barely had to spend any time with her at all.

How much time did Troy spend working on that with her?

SALLY (V.O.): Shush! Don’t take this away from me!

SALLY (V.O.): Since you asked about Troy, here’s a picture of him with Tamara. She just loves to be tossed in the air! Now that she’s bigger, he can’t do that, of course. He doesn’t want to throw his back out. So instead he takes Tamara’s hands and swings her around in a big circle.

Do you do that too?

SALLY (V.O.): Oh no! I’m too afraid her arms will come off!

They’re attached, you know.

SALLY (V.O.): I never said it was a rational fear.

SALLY (V.O.): Okay, okay, just one more! This is Tamara and Tom. She just loves giving him hugs. She kisses him, too.How does Tom feel about it?SALLY (V.O.): Well, whenever she lets go, he’s off like a shot. But then I see him cleaning himself wherever she’s touched him, and that’s actually a good sign. It means that the cat likes the way you taste.*Does it really?SALLY (V.O.): Uh-huh. Well, it was nice to talk with you, but I have a deadline, so…Okay. Good luck!

*True. But probably irrelevant in this case.

I will open this household with a cute picture guaranteed to make those of you who like these two go “Awwwwwww!”

…Or at least I hope that’s guaranteed.

This would be why.

GRIM REAPER: E. ..roud., M.. .itt..dra..n! I.’. a pa… i. yo.. .on..!

HARKON: In my honor?

GRIM REAPER: Yu.! I go. .ou .ul. gir.. .n gra.. .kir.. a.. .very…ng! I.’. .ar. .f ou. .ew cust…r-c..ter.. .nit…tive.

HARKON: Um… You might have done better with me if those were hula boys. Preferably really buff ones that look like David Beckham.

GRIM REAPER: I’. .orr., M.. .itt..drag... .ave a dr.., a. .ea..?

HARKON (cheerfully): You don’t need to ask me twice!

Harkon Littledragon, 75 years old. Harkon held out for his three-bolt match, and very nearly won me an Internet Lover mini challenge. Although I failed the challenge, he still won, marrying his Internet friend (and perfect three-bolter) Nirel and spending the next fifty years with him. Harkon and Nirel adopted two girls and a ridiculous number of cats. Harkon’s passing leaves a huge hole in my game: this picture is from 2010, to give you an idea of just how huge.

Rest in peace, Harkon.

You can take it as a given that everyone looked like this for the next couple of days.

Including the cats.

Speaking of the cats, both Jack Rackham and Figaro are now Elders, although the only difference I can see is that Figaro’s orange ear seems to have turned black.

Figaro is the one in the basket.

I had to write that down. I can’t tell the cats apart either.

Cathrynne Grew Up also, and I used the same method of picking her aspiration as I did for Rebecca and Anastasia. (“Eenie meenie miney mo,” for those of you who don’t remember.) She ended up as Family, and she likes boys with brown or custom hair, provided they aren’t wearing hats to hide that lovely hair.

She wants to do all sorts of Family Sim things, like kiss and fall in love, so we dropped top dollar on a Matchmaker date.

We ended up with Joe Grundstrom. Again.

Since he had two bolts with Cathrynne, I decided to give him a chance to redeem himself. Their first few interactions went pretty well, although his conversation bored her silly, and he thought hers was stupid. But we persevered, and the date meter ran out just a hair away from “Good.”

Joe announced that it was completely lame and that Cathyrnne shouldn’t call him again.

(darkly) Joe Grudstrom, you will regret this.

Later that night, Dante Grew Up into some… interesting… clothing.

But who is that in the background?

I fear he needs no introduction.

GRIM REAPER: M.. .ittl…rag..? M.. .itt…rag..? Ov.. .er..

NIREL: Did I get hula boys?

GRIM REAPER: N., .orr..

NIREL: Hula girls?

GRIM REAPER: Sor.., .o.

NIREL: A drink?

GRIM REAPER: I’. reall. .orry, M.. .itt…rag...

Nirel (Couderc) Littledragon, 72 years old. Nirel was named after a character in one of my favorite Andre Norton books, although even if you’ve read ‘Ware Hawk you might not realize it: his name is mentioned five times, maybe six. Nirel’s namesake was missing a hand, but that isn’t possible in The Sims, so he became blind instead. (Which also isn’t possible, but doesn’t show.) Nirel’s lack of vision didn’t stop him going online with a special computer and keyboard, and it didn’t stop him being a successful intelligence officer for the military, either.

Goodbye, Nirel. I won’t be the only one to miss you.

Once they got over the “ick” factor of realizing that yes, their parents still woohoo, Jo and Cecil were very excited about the new baby.

JOSEPHINE: Squeeeeee! It kicked!

BUTTERCUP (indulgently): Isn’t it great?

JOSEPHINE: Oh wow. Oh wow. It kicked!

CECIL: You had your turn, Jo. Let me feel!

Of course, the closer you get to your due date, the more it’s a case of “hurry up and wait.”

BUTTERCUP: You can go to bed, Albie.

ALBERT: No, something might happen any minute. I (yawns) need to be here.

BUTTERCUP: And what will you do?

ALBERT: Meh, probably freak out. But in a loving and supportive manner!

BUTTERCUP (fondly): Go to bed, Albie. I got this. (in a normal tone) You can take diaper and bottle duty in the morning.

Finally, at two a.m.:

BUTTERCUP: Ohhhhhh, I think I may have been wrong about thaaaaaaat…

Say hello to Skye, everyone! Skye is completely adorabubble, and is also living proof that I managed to restore recessive genetics correctly in the last rebuild.

Buttercup’s hair is black, but her father was a blonde who had a 50-50 chance of carrying a red recessive.

Albert’s hair is also black, but his mother was blonde. Oddly enough, his father was a brunette; Sim genetics can be a bit weird that way.

Skye’s siblings both adore her and take every opportunity to spend time with her that they can.

JOSEPHINE (croons softly): Sleep tight, you perfect little bundle of perfection, you.

This caused a few problems, actually.

JOSEPHINE: It’s my turn to hold her, Cecil!

CECIL: No, it’s mine. Anyway, we just got up. You didn’t call any turns yet.

JOSEPHINE: Yes I did! I called it in my head when I woke up. Before, even!

CECIL: Well, I’ve got her, so tough.

CECIL (croons): There you go, sweetheart. You just have a nice bottle and forget all about your stupid big sister. “I called it in my head before I woke up.” (scoffs) You listen to your big brother, instead. He makes sense.

SKYE: blup

But the fighting didn’t last very long: Jo and Cecil are so much older than Skye that they were off to college that same rotation.

JOSEPHINE (sourly): I called shotgun,* Cecil.CECIL: I called it first.JOSEPHINE: No you didn’t. I shouted “Shotgun!” as soon as the cab turned the corner, and you know it.CECIL (smugly): I called it in my head three hours ago.

We will see more of Jo and Cecil next time.

*For my non-American readers, “shotgun” is the seat next to the driver. In many families, the first person to yell “shotgun” gets to sit there.

I have a confession to make: When I moved Trixie and Tirtha to their new home, I made a stupid mistake and accidentally moved the Tsvirkunov family first. Since I didn’t want them to move, I promptly moved them right back in. However (as you can see) they lost all their belongings.

I know there’s a hack that will prevent that, but since it only happens when I am incredibly stupid, I don’t think the hack would actually help.

At any rate, I went ahead and carpe’d the heck out of that diem. Now the first floor has a much better layout. It could probably use some more wall hangings and/or bookshelves, but I’m pretty happy with the results.

As an unfortunate side effect of the move, the calendar has reset to Monday, which means that Descartes has three days off again.

He turned Elder at the end of the rotation, but since he is already established in his career, he should be able to achieve his LTW anyway.

What am I saying? He’s Descartes; he’s made of Awesome. Of course he’ll achieve his LTW!

He’ll also buy some new clothes next rotation. Descartes can rock just about anything, but that outfit is insufficiently Awesome.

Rebecca is having some definite problems. She was so far in the red that I was amazed the Shrink didn’t show up, and coaxing her out of that took a fair amount of work.

REBECCA: I bet you’re pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you?

ANASTASIA: Huh?

REBECCA: Proud of yourself for stealing my boyfriend!

ANASTASIA: You’re interested in Frederic?

REBECCA: Frederic? I’m talking about Cecil! How can you have two boyfriends when I don’t have any?!

Since her aspiration was still low, I decided to let Rebecca go for her First Kiss with a classmate. She brought him home from school, and she’d been busily Flirting (and being accepted) all afternoon.

So much for all that work bringing her out of the red…

I decided to give it up as a bad job. Since it was that time anyway, I sent the girls off to college. Rebecca will definitely not be Growing Up Well, but hopefully the aspiration boost from higher education will stave off the Shrink.

You’ll see more of them in the college chapter.

Abbey was demoted at work, but was quite cheerful about the whole thing. I was actually quite surprised -- usually a demoted Sim will at least sigh and mope when they get home, but Abbey cheerfully went to make dinner and talk to Descartes.

It wasn’t until later in the day that I caught her crying in the bathroom.

Finally, the ghosts have been out in force ever since the mistaken move. Tim and Sarah Jane never really showed their lack of Nice points when they were alive, but now that their bed is gone, they’re manifesting with a vengeance.

Everyone got scared multiple times a night, although for some reason the ghosts were focused on Abbey. And while Abbey is a Knowledge Sim and enjoys seeing ghosts, it still takes a toll on her meters. Descartes, faced with the choice between his dead parents and live wife, very sensibly chose his wife.

Tim and Sarah Jane now rest in the cemetery across the street.

And speaking of stupid mistakes, apparently I made one a while back with keeping track of the days in the rotation: Both Charlie and Louise were older than their respective twins. (For those of you who may be new -- or simply forgetful -- Louise’s twin sister is Myrna, the Official spouse in my OWBC. Which you should totally go read if you don’t follow it already.) So this rotation, their household was given credit for those missing days right off the bat and I only played one day.

Although it was a good day. Charlotte got a job in the Athletic career, which you have to admit beats sitting around the house all the time.

They still have a bar, but it gets much less use now.

Charlotte Grew Up at six p.m., right on schedule.

LOUISE: Time for a new look, huh?CHARLOTTE: Yeah, once you hit fifty-four, you’re really too old for braids.LOUISE: Cut them off yourself?CHARLOTTE: Yup. Why waste money on a salon?LOUISE: I own a salon, hon. You could have had it done for free.CHARLOTTE: I’ve seen what your so-called stylist does to people. I’ll take my chances with the scissors, thanks.

Because I played them so little, I have very few pictures. But as you can see, all is well.

All is also well at the Trixie and Tirtha house. Leonid is showing every one of his Nice points, and Trixie doesn’t seem to mind too much.

Ariadene is pleased with her grades.

ARIADENE: Mom! Mom! I got a B-! A B-! Can you believe it?! (whoops and jumps around in a circle) I’m going to go show Dad!

Abhijeet has gone to the flower shop with Tirtha to try and help boost business. The phone still only offers the option to hire already-employed playables, for some reason, and the store is short-handed.

Thanks to Abhijeet’s tireless efforts, the business has gained enough stars to offset the negative stars it earned last time.

Of course, that does put it at zero stars and level zero…

Dmitri is getting along well with his sister. Or, okay, not technically his sister, but you know what I mean.

DMITRI: I like your dress, Araidene. It’s really pretty.

ARIADENE: Thanks! I like it too.

DMITRI: Can I try it on sometime?

ARIADENE: Um…

Frederic is still a frequent visitor, and is now friends with Ariadene too. Dmitri and Ariadene have another mutual friend in Cathrynne, who also comes over frequently.

Although Frederic and Cathrynne don’t seem to get along all that well…

At the Shankel-Couderc residence, the girls are in the midst of stocking up the farm stand. It’s a family effort, as usual. Everyone has a gold Gardening Badge and could handle the plant care equally well, but Oliver and Oakapple tend to roll up Wants to fish, so I generally leave them in charge of that.

Oliver is also contributing homemade pies and cakes to the farm stand. For such an enthusiastic cook, he doesn’t appear to have enough cooking points to bake cheesecake yet, but I’m sure he’ll get there soon.

Do you know, I’ve never noticed what dishes are tied to what cooking level? Except Lobster Thermidor, of course: you have to have maxed Cooking for that.

Oakapple tried to help with the baking too.

Once.

Our Family Sim is having a particularly hard time because I refuse to let her Get Married or Have a Ton Of Babies RIGHT NOW. I’m quite willing to fulfill any more reasonable requests, though.

Her sister ends up on the receiving end of an awful lot of Pollen Clouds, I’m afraid.

Why won’t I let her get married? Partly because I have Plans.

And partly because the Matchmaker refuses to drop anyone remotely suitable for $150.

(snaps at the Matchmaker) That’s half the money in their bank account, lady! Doesn’t that count for anything?

Fortunately, there were no fires at the House of the Double A’s this time. There really wasn’t much to document: Adam was happy as a clam cooking and cleaning. Mostly.

ADAM: Amy, babe? Could you maybe eat just a teensy bit more neatly? Only last time it took me forever to get the stains out of the carpet.AMY: snarf gobble slurp No, but I have a reason.ADAM: What reason is that?(Brief whoop of a siren outside)AMY: Oh snap, that’s the carpool. Tell you later. (blows a kiss in Adam’s general direction) Love you!

AMY: Adam! Adam! I did it! I made the vice squad! Now I get to wear fishnets and a bustier -- Whoa! What is that? It feels really weird.

AMY: Well, nuts! There go the fishnets and the bustier. (sourly) I thought I had a little time yet.

The baby isn’t due until well into the next rotation, but that doesn’t phase Adam. Since he’s a Family Sim, he had a wonderful time decking out the baby’s room. Of course, they’ll be doing co-sleeping for the first year or so; although current research is inconclusive, Adam is a firm believer in it.

Adam, like Amy, has distinct Knowledge tendencies. And he has yet to roll up a single Want to so much as become engaged to the mother of his child.

I got a little bit of a scare when I opened up Edgar and Celeste’s house for the first time. Frederic had lost his lovely spiky new hair and everyone was standing there still and reset, just as if I had installed a new expansion pack. I quit without saving immediately, so I could investigate.

As it turned out, I had somehow managed to move my Downloads folder to the desktop. Whoops.

When I put it back where it belonged, all was right with the world.

Frederic is not too big to have fun on the swings. He’s not too old for his father to give him a push, either.

(fondly) Eddie is such a sweet guy.

But Frederic is too big to be content with just a swing set. Since he is a Pleasure Sim with constant Wants for a date, and since the family has money coming out their ears, I decided to send him on a couple of top-simoleon dates.

THE MATCHMAKER: Now that’s what I call “making a commitment,” hon! You want a boy or a girl?

FREDERIC (cheerfully): I’m not picky. Whoever’s free.

It’s quite true: Frederic is not picky.

CELESTE (V.O.): Isn’t it… awkward?

FREDERIC (V.O.): What?

CELESTE (V.O.): Dating Ariadene.

FREDERIC (V.O.): Nuh. Why would it be?

CELESTE (V.O.): Well… She’s your best friend’s sister…

FREDERIC (V.O.): So?

CELESTE (V.O.): Well…

FREDERIC (V.O.): Anyway, it was only one date.

CELESTE (V.O.): So, um, how did she compare to, uh…

FREDERIC (V.O.): Juan? I dunno. They’re both fun.

CELESTE (V.O.): And you don’t know which you, ah…

FREDERIC (V.O.): Nope. What’s wrong with you, Mom? You act like Aunt Charlie isn’t gay or something.

CELESTE (V.O.):(quickly) Oh, I don’t have any problem with Aunt Charlie. It’s just that she’s not my son…

FREDERIC (V.O.): Well, I dunno. Hey, can I have a TV in my room?

According to his relationship panel, Frederic has one bolt of chemistry with Ariadene and none with Juan Harris. On the other hand, Ariadene is a Romance Sim and automatically gets a one-bolt boost to her relationships.

Both dates went into the Good Date range, but the one with Juan got there first.

Finally, when Frederic ended the date with Ariadene, they shared a Friendly Hug. With Juan, he went for the gold.

JUAN: Dude! I do not kiss on the first date! What kind of a guy do you think I am?

He didn’t get there, but he did try.

Just to make things more fun, Frederic has been repeatedly rolling the Want to Go Steady, but he doesn’t seem to care with whom. I suppose we will have to investigate next time.

Sally’s TV show is an idea I’ve had kicking around for a while, and I thought that perhaps I would try using clips from the show as transition elements in this story. Of course, it would only be one shot per transition, so you probably wouldn’t get to follow the plot. If that would be distracting, let me know. If you think it’s worth giving it one shot, let me know.

The Grim Reaper’s lines, in order:

Ey shrouda, Mr. Littledragon! It’s a party in your honor!

Yup! I got you hula girls in grass skirts and everything! It’s part of our new customer-centered initiative.

I’m sorry, Mr. Littledragon. Have a drink, at least?

Mr. Littledragon? Mr. Littledragon? Over here.

No, sorry.

Sorry, no.

I’m really sorry, Mr. Littledragon.

And finally, I would like to correct an omission I made last time: Chapter 45’s title, “The Age of the Reaper,” came from loyal reader Solo. I should have credited him last time, and I apologize for forgetting. Thank you, Solo!

Until next time, Happy Simming!