encore act 4, scene 3

Welcome back to SiMania Admods: The Musical! When we left off at the end of scene 2, Christine and Raoul were about to have a double birthday, to childhood and the toddler years, respectively. Let’s see how they look . . .

(Erratum: last chapter I said Rolfe was family but he’s actually pleasure. He just rolled wants for the wedding because he’s an elder and that confused me momentarily.)

Here’s Raoul. He sure is a cutie. It’s too bad he doesn’t have the skin. His personality is 5/4/9/5/9. It’s interesting that he and his sister are so nice, because Marty only has one nice point and Steven only has four.

Here’s Christine, still adorable. She got a new haircut for childhood that shows off her face better. In the picture at left, she’s wondering why her mom did the chest pound gesture at her. I just loved the face she was making.

Pregnant Marty once again made best friends with her child on his birthday, though this time it was right after the cake instead of before. Steven made best friends with Raoul the next day. This family is very close.

The four puppies – Soprano, Contralto, Tenor, and Baritone – are still a handful. Pee puddles everywhere and puppies getting into everything. I liked the picture of Contralto appraising Rolfe’s choice in leisure activities – what an observant puppy!

Earthy Isaac was still hanging around after the party long enough for Marty to cheat at chess. He never caught on, though. Before I learned that finicky pets needed the most expensive bowl (thanks, Haleigh!), I gave up on Putzie eating and just had people feed him treats several times a day. On her birthday, Christine maximized her creativity due to spending a lot of time as a toddler on the xylophone.

The children’s new life stages bring new opportunities for learning. Raoul gets taught all his skills by his family members, and Christine heads off for her first day of school. In their spare time, the siblings play together at the table to raise their relationship.

The puppies finally grew up and I am very disappointed. I should have realized earlier that all their personalities were the same as Diva, and what that probably meant. Yep, they’re all clones of their mother. I like beagles and they’re cute, but I didn’t really need five of them. Not only did they not inherit Putzie’s blue mask, they didn’t inherit a single thing from him! At least now they can go pee on their own outside.

And surround and overwhelm poor neighborhood kids, like cousin Lloyd here. I don’t know what Putzie’s deal is in this picture but I would be scared if a dog made that face at me.

With two kids and one on the way, we really didn’t need six dogs in the house. Soprano and Tenor (female and male, respectively) had already made friends in the house so they got to stay and Lydia can decide which one she wants to breed next. Contralto went to Betty and Baritone went to Tom, but not before peeing in the graveyard one more time like his uncle Doody. Tsk tsk. Now all the spares and their families have a dog as well.

“So . . . about the baby . . .”“What?! We’re having another baby?! That’s great news!”“Um, we only found that out last chapter, Steven. Keep up.”“But you’ve been two days pregnant for like a hundred slides.”“Yeah, well, someone likes to take a lot of pictures.”

Christine is a slow skiller, but she plods along and eventually fills up one bar after another.

Luckily she didn’t take as long to learn to do her homework.

Raoul continues his learning too. While teaching him to talk, Marty finally experiences her second bump. Getting closer to the last kid of the generation. Something I want to point out – see that the bottle in the speech bubble is different than the one on the ground? The one in the bubble is my default, so the one on the ground must be Katie’s and is overriding mine. Funny how these things work.

Christine and Raoul are best friends nearly right away. Christine adores her younger brother and is constantly wanting to play with him. All those tickles and peek-a-boos made them best friends fast.

Um, Steven? You’re supposed to be bathing some of our filthy beagles.“Yeah, but they jumped out of the tub, so I thought, hey, why waste warm water?”You’re bathing in dog water? Eww . . .

I love these conversations. They are just so wacky. I imagine this one is about recycling puppy appearances and personalities so we get clones, and how it’s a good thing I intervene so that doesn’t happen to the babies. Or something.

Christine is very playful and loves to tell jokes. Here, her joke about an astronaut was so funny that Steven broke his left wrist slapping his own face. Ouch.

While she’s pregnant and off from work (currently as an acclaimed muralist, though she hasn’t been to a day of work so far), Marty likes playing the piano. She finally reaches the zone. I love that they change into concert clothes. Best zone, imo.

Marty quickly changes back to her pjs after one particularly rousing performance, just in time to give birth to the third child. Rolfe? You may want to turn around and pay a little attention here.

Secondary family Marsha and primary family Steven are delighted that there’s going to be a new baby, but what is Marty getting 1,000 points for? Why, meeting someone new, of course. Hmmph, romance sims. She really has never given up on those wants, so it’s a good thing she’s permaplatinum.

Amazing! Another blue baby! This one is named Erik, and has Steven’s dark blue eyes and Marty’s brown hair (yes, I’m pretty sure it’s brown this time).

Erik is the real name of the phantom. He is jealous and possessive of Christine, but also incredibly musically talented and with a real tender spot for the young soprano. He finally gives her up after realizing the depth of her love for Raoul. And yes, I just named three siblings after a love triangle. Whoops!

Christine is as shocked as I was to see another blue sim in the house.

“But I’m supposed to be heiress! I will brook no competition!”

Um, yes you will, because I say so. Chill, child. It’s anyone’s game at this point and you do also have the eyes and red hair. However, this does mean we have two potential heirs!

Oh my god, a hand-off! Is Marty having twins? No, this romance sim just got tired of holding her new baby for two whole minutes.

Hey Aria, you just missed scaring Marty while she was pregnant again.

“Oh darn.”

She’s still the only one that’s figured out how to come in the house. Mark appears to play with the dogs pretty frequently, however.

Ahahahahahaha! My writing of Christine resenting Erik’s birth is not just authorial fancy. She actually hates the little guy from his birth, evidenced by her thought bubble and negative relationship points, both daily and long-term. I find this oddly hilarious.

Also amusing: despite there being a ton of toys in her room and just outside the door, Christine climbed on her bed first thing in the morning and started daydreaming. I’ve never seen a kid do that before.

Christine may hate him, but everyone else adores Erik. Since Raoul is still occupying the nursery, Erik moves into the so-far empty boys’ room so he won’t wake Raoul up or vice-versa.

Christine brings home her first A from school. Meanwhile, Raoul can’t stop thinking about when he’ll be able to bring home his own good grades.

That day is coming sooner than he thinks, since it’s Raoul’s birthday. Soon he’ll be in school like his big sis and best bud. Unfortunately for him, it’s a Friday, so he’ll have to wait several days.

Aww, finally these two friends can hug. Raoul continues to be a little cutie-pie.

Aria is at work again. She seems to be very concerned both with the contents of our refrigerator and also that Marty doesn’t get too comfortable in the house.

Christine spends every morning on her bed, usually daydreaming about her cousins. Raoul, on the other hand, plays with toys like a normal kid. Now that he’s a child, he moved into the now-decorated boys’ room and Erik took over the nursery.

*Record scratch*

Uh, why is Christine daydreaming about the ugly guy that Marty fell in love with before Steven? Did Marty tell her some inappropriate bedtime stories or something? “And that, dear, is why your father looked even cuter than usual.”

On the bright side, her relationship with Erik has decayed to zero, so now she just feels apathy towards him instead of actively despising him.

Christine is the only one that feels that way, though. Super-friendly mom Marty made best friends with Erik the day after he was born. Wow!

Raoul continues to be obsessed with school. He’s always thinking or talking about grades and school stuff. And then trying to impress girls with that. Good luck, Raoul.

Christine continues to work on her skills, but because she is so slow, Raoul is rapidly catching up with her.

Headmaster time! Marsha changes out of her nightie for a rare moment to greet and schmooze the headmaster.

Meanwhile, Marty burns the salmon and sets the kitchen on fire. Way to go, Marty.

While Marsha gave the tour, Marty put out the fire and cooked another batch of salmon, which the headmaster was pleased with. Both Christine and Raoul got into private school, despite the fact that Raoul hasn’t been to school yet.

Because she is secondary knowledge, Marty wanted the kids to get into private school. This is what I got when her wants refreshed after that happened. Meet someone new, be BFF with earthy Isaac, fall in love with Isaac, make out with five sims, buy a vacation home, woohoo five sims. She’s also afraid of losing ugly guy as a best friend and being rejected for a kiss by Isaac. She’s incorrigible. She kept rolling wants to fall in love with Isaac over and over, so it’s a good thing she’s no longer in oceanography and bringing him home.

Birthday time for little Erik. Even Christine manages to get excited. Now we can finally work on their relationship.

Isn’t he adorable? Like I said, it’s anyone’s game at this point, at least between the two of them, because technically the skin is the only requirement. I do wish he had the eyes though, but he’s such a cutie I can’t rule him out. His personality is 7/3/9/5/1, making him our only mean sim of the generation. Interestingly, except for having three fewer nice points, this is the same personality as Steven.

Time to teach Erik his skills. And Steven, I really don’t think that’s proper technique for potty training. I’ve always thought this glitch was a particularly creepy one.

I set the kids down at the table in the morning to start work on their relationships before the older two go off to school. I looked at the relationship panels and realized that while Erik was gaining points with both of them, Christine’s hadn’t budged and Raoul’s barely had. They must only be talking to each other instead of to Erik. Therefore I had to separate them for some one-on-one time and Christine was up first since she has the worst relationship with poor little Erik and needed the most remedial socializing.

Putzie’s time has come. He lived a full life and brought four new puppies into the world, despite not contributing any of his genes. He was too finicky to eat dog food, but he was a good dog and much beloved by his family.

Just once I would like to see a death scene without everyone jockeying for positions and complaining that there’s nowhere to stand. You’re outside, people, find a place!

“Argh! I want to clean this toilet but there’s an old woman on it!”

“What do I have to do to get a little privacy in this bathroom? I mean, seriously.”

Uh, Rolfe and Marsha? Listening to the dulcet tones of you two making out is probably not helping the kids study. And really, Christine needs all the help she can get. Raoul has now surpassed her in skilling.

Christine got exhausted one Saturday afternoon despite the fact that all she had been doing was studying next to a snapdragon. A quick nap in a recliner got her back in shape to study some more, but the recliner has been forever glitched as open since then.

Finally Christine and Erik made best friends! Erik had a really positive relationship with Christine from the beginning and was 100/100 by the time this happened, but Christine sure has come a long way from her days of thinking of Erik with a big X.

Why hello, Betty and Isaiah. These two are married to each other, if you remember, and they both happened to show up at the house at the same time.

After being invited in, Betty caught up with her parents while Isaiah spoiled the dogs. Betty then made friends with the teenage cashier that Steven inexplicably brought home from work (which worries me a little) over juice and robbers. At least Marty didn’t get mysteriously furious this time!

Raoul and Christine continue to have divergent paths first thing in the morning. Christine mostly thinks about her cousins, despite the fact she’s only met Lloyd so far. I think it’s so interesting that she’s apparently so thoughtful all on her own.

After another long stretch of being pregnant and having myriad days off, Marty is finally heading in to work at her art job. If she gets promoted to visionary, this will complete her second LTW.

The day he’s been waiting pretty much his whole life for finally came and Raoul got to go to school. He’s excited to do his homework, which surprises no one.

Our boys in stripes make best friends quickly. They had a much better relationship towards each other than Christine did initially. I guess Raoul had nothing to be jealous of since he’s not in the running for heir anyway.

Um, Steven? Mopping a puddle in the rain is highly unproductive.

Notice that a walk-by has been accosted by one of the dogs. No one can walk by the house without being sniffed or asked to play by one of the beagles.

Yay Marty! There’s that second LTW completed! Her new lifetime want is to become a cult leader, which is the same as Steven’s second one. Unlike Steven, Marty went to college so she can actually complete this want.

“I am really worried about that girl. I mean, that’s just not normal.”

Me too, Marty. What in the world is she writing in her diary?!

And we’ll wrap up with another so-called “cliffhanger” birthday party. Will Erik and Christine suddenly turn ugly? Will either of them fail to grow up? Will something unexpected happen? Probably no to all of those, but you’ll just have to read the next scene to find out! Sorry that I had to make four of them this round, but there would have been one huge third scene otherwise.

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