Welcome once more to SiMania Admods: The Musical! Finally we have reached the last scene for my turn. When we left off, our two blue sims – the only ones eligible for heir/ess – were about to have a double birthday. Christine and Erik are ready to grow up, so let’s see what we get.

Here’s Christine. She’s pretty lazy so she’s slumping in her birthday picture, so I included another picture of her standing up straight too. Besides the slow skilling, the laziness is the only thing I don’t really like about her. Otherwise, I love this kid!

She rolled family/knowledge. I guess the upside to the slow skilling is that now she can get some points for maxing her last few skills due to the knowledge aspiration. I think Christine turned out very beautiful and I love a good family sim.

Here’s little Erik, the baby of the family and the former subject of Christine’s ire. They’re now best friends, though. He is also adorable, although lacking the family eyes. He’s got such a great mix of his mom and dad. *pinches cheeks*

Erik can now join his siblings in skilling. Thankfully, he takes more after his brother Raoul than he does Christine. She is still skilling suuuuuper slowly, and Raoul is set to max his skills before she does. If she doesn’t work hard, maybe Erik will too, lol.

Just a cute little double belly rub picture. The dogs are an important part of family life in the Encore household.

In the morning, Raoul leads his little brother on a jog to the school bus, although they’re going to different schools since we haven’t had the headmaster over yet for Erik. When he returns home, Steven teaches him how to do his homework.

Meanwhile, Christine heads off for her first day in the science career. It’ll change, of course, but on my computer she wants to be a mad scientist for her LTW, so I sent her into the science career when it opened up right away.

Christine left behind the boy who followed her home from school, Aidan. He’s happy to help himself to a drink from the bar. Sure, seems normal and healthy. Christine wanted to befriend him before I sent her off to her job, but I’m not sure she should be friends with a teenager that makes a beeline for the “juice.”

And a few hours later, Christine returns home an overachiever. Way to go, Christine! Now go ahead and chat up Aidan if it’ll make you happy.

Raoul has maxed almost all his skills. Now that his sister is working, it may take even longer for her to catch up with him.

The headmaster comes over that night and Marty manages not to set anything on fire this time. He accepts Erik easily into the school.

Morning time brings the three children together, and the three beagles are quick to follow. It makes for a pretty busy little room. At first Christine and Raoul interact, but she eventually lets Erik play too. Despite their relationship scores, I think she still holds a little lingering resentment. Just my opinion, though.

The three kids head off to private school together for the first time.

While the kids are busy with school and work, the adults don’t have much going on. Marty is still working as a visionary while she waits for paranormal to come up on the computer so she can start on her third LTW. Consequently, she runs around in her all-black visionary outfit.

The grown-ups in the house spend a lot of their time together, whether that means a dance party or communal make-out time. They’re just autonomously drawn to their spouses, which is sweet.

Might as well be a flashing sign: Aria was here. No other ghosts have figured out how to get into the house, but she’s a frequent visitor. Thanks to her secondary knowledge aspiration, Christine actually thinks it was a positive memory.

Erik’s predestined hobby is sports, and he frequently rolls wants related to it. He especially is good at pulling his parents away for a quick game of catch. Thankfully, his nice points (or lack thereof) don’t come into play and he resists the urge to bean his parents with the ball.

Raoul’s teen birthday comes around, and his growing up well makes most of the household happy. Marsha and Steven have primary or secondary family aspirations but Marty’s become pretty good about rolling up family-oriented wants despite being a romance sim.

And here he is, the only ‘normal’ sim of the generation. Raoul is still a cutie, in my opinion. Just like his big sister, he rolled family, but his secondary is grilled cheese.

Steven brought home a pretty coworker and Marty keeps a close eye on the two of them.

She’s right to do so, because Steven is heavily attracted to his coworker. That’s not right for a family sim. Focus on your family, Steven! Ignore the pretty Captain Hero! Stop telling her how attractive she is!

“Sweetie, will you ever leave me alone while I’m using the bathroom of giant polka dots?”“Never, my love.”“I thought as much, honey.”

Raoul has maxed all his skills finally! Christine is still working on hers, but Erik is swiftly catching up with her.

Since the only two she had left were cooking and cleaning, Christine retired to her room to use the bookshelf there. Maybe a little alone time will help her focus better.

Raoul has become enamored with the newspaper girl, Renee. Like in his childhood, his go-to topics are all about school and learning. He makes sure to let Renee know that he has a bunch of scholarships and has maxed all his skills.

He also puts on this face. I can just imagine his inner monologue: “I’m talking to a girl! For real! A girl! Is talking to me! I’m so excited! A real girl! Talking to me!”

Whoa there, boy. When we can see your lower gums, you’re smiling too wide.

Renee is into hearing Raoul talk himself up, but she draws the line at talking about grilled cheese. That’s just not attractive to her, I guess.

Raoul drowns his sorrow in the cool stream of music emanating from the stereo. And looks like a total dork doing it.

“Oh my god, a chair!”“Mom, there’s a chair! Wow!”

I think this chair got haunted once and ever since it elicits this reaction from anyone in the vicinity. What an exciting chair!

When he’s not playing catch with his parents, Erik’s getting his siblings to swing him around. He’s such an active little guy.

Steven! You’re a family sim! Act like it and stop bringing her home with you!

Raoul daydreams about Kaylynn Spitzig, who he has never met. That is her name, right? I’m not even sure. But apparently her reputation precedes her.

Christine literally studied all night and still hasn’t maxed her skills. She’s close though. She needed to take a break for an energizer pick-me-up, and everyone nearby had to come check out the new object.

Marty and Marsha couldn’t help gossiping, but maybe they should have been a bit more discreet?

Finally Christine has maxed her skills. Geez, that only took forever.

And Erik just has to show off by maxing his the same day.

Raoul is an overachiever. I forgot his LTW on my computer, but I sent him into science with his sister so they’d have the same hours.

Christine got her first kiss with Aidan the lush. It’s really hard to keep family teens happy without resorting to relationships, so even though they have only a few days to be together, I went ahead and let her fall in love with Aidan like she wanted.

“Look, Mom! Over there!”

Marty is such a cheater!

Christine brings home another boy despite having a boyfriend. Don’t emulate your dad, sweetie, he’s doing family sim wrong. You’re supposed to be devoted, not constantly bringing home fresh meat like some degenerate romance sim.

Christine’s new friend had to be asked to leave after he started picking on Renee, who was over visiting Raoul. She didn’t put up with any of his pranks, though. Meanwhile, Lloyd smustles on the sidewalk.

Renee apparently got stinky from poking random guy too much, but Raoul doesn’t mind. He’s just too happy to get his first kiss.

He’s found a better outlet for talking about grilled cheese. Although Renee won’t listen, Christine’s 10 nice points assure that she’ll talk with Raoul about grilled cheese any time.

Father-son dance party! They’re so cute and dorky, at the same time.

Aww, Marsha’s time has come. She was studying one of the non-skills from the bookcase and her book, left on the floor where she laid it, is a testament to things left unfinished.

This was a hard death on those there to watch it. The dogs wailed and wailed while Marty, Rolfe, and Erik cried.

Here’s the aftermath of Marsha’s death. Rolfe reluctantly sleeps alone for the first time in a long time. Soprano and Diva stayed in the room where Marsha died and howled for several hours. The next morning, Erik can’t stop thinking about his grandmother while he plays with his toys. He seems particularly hard hit by her death.

His siblings are there to watch out for him, though.

Rolfe’s time is up the very next day after Marsha’s death. At least he didn’t have to live without her for too long. Poor little Erik is there to witness this one too.

Also: not to ruin the solemnity of the picture, but could we please have a death scene without someone stomping and complaining?

Wishing you were somehow here again / Knowing we must say, "Goodbye“ / Try to forgive, teach me to live / Give me the strength to try / No more memories, no more silent tears / No more gazing across the wasted years / Help me say, "Goodbye"

--from Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, The Phantom of the Opera

Two deaths in two days cast a shadow over Erik’s birthday – literally in this case, as Raoul looms over Erik, crying.

The family musters some excitement for little Erik despite the grief and shock they’re all feeling.

Erik’s birthday present is his inheritance. It doesn’t change anything about the sadness and poor timing of the deaths, though, but this shows how close Rolfe’s death was to Erik’s birthday.

While Erik is doing his spin, Christine thinks of Rolfe’s death and Raoul breaks down in tears again in the corner. I think this may be the most depressing birthday party I’ve ever played.

With the tears dried and the cake eaten, here’s Erik. He grew up very handsome, in my opinion, which can only help him as he has rolled up a popularity/romance aspiration.

Even though it’s just two days before I’m going to hand them off, Christine rolls the want to go steady with Aidan, so I let her. Luckily, moving to another computer is like going to college – a get-out-of-broken-teen-hearts-free pass.

“Hello there. I have a deformed-looking hand.”

Eesh. I thought this was so cool back in the day but sometimes this skin just makes me cringe. I like that we’re continuing it but I wish I had made it better. The recoloring/shading in spots leaves much to be desired, among other faults.

Erik continues to be all go-go-go and active, playing the drums like a maniac and luring people off to play catch.

Raoul is much more contemplative and autonomously feeds the invisible koi on the way home from school.

“We’re family sims!”

No, really? I couldn’t tell.

Erik also went to work – in the athletic career if I’m remembering right – and returned home an overachiever. Although some of the days are different, he keeps the same hours as his scientist siblings, so they carpool together more often than not.

Besides the overachiever designation, Erik also came home with a cold. He spent some time napping on the recliners in the sun room. Luckily he can sleep despite his mom holding a conversation in the background. Someone decided to play the drums shortly after this picture was taken, however, and that definitely didn’t help his nap.

For a minor aspiration boost, Erik meets someone new by greeting a walk-by.

Then it’s straight back to resting, which doesn’t exactly make Erik happy. He doesn’t really like to sit still or do quiet things, so relaxing on the couch makes him cranky, as you can see by his expression.

The reason I didn’t immediately hand the family off when Erik became a teen is because Marty finally found a job in the paranormal career and I knew that one night of work as an exorcist would help her achieve her third LTW, assuming nothing went wrong. She heads off, dressed in her . . . interesting work attire.

Meanwhile, Steven sets to cooking up some of Grandma’s Comfort Soup to help out his ailing son. Unfortunately, Aria is also on the prowl.

“Woo. That is one smoking ghost!”

I wouldn’t check out the ghost if I were you, Steven.

“Why ever not?”

That’s why.

Erik finished the whole bowl of soup and I got a notification that he felt his illness was “melting away,” but then the next pop-up said he had a cold! How many bowls of this stupid soup does it take to cure a cold? Regardless, we really only had time for the one since this is the last day I’ll have the family. Poor Erik will just have to go to Lydia sick. I tried. I really did.

Early the next morning, while everyone else is sleeping, Marty returns home from work as a cult leader, fulfilling her third lifetime want. Now my turn is complete.

So who will be the heir, Erik or Christine? What other musical will be used in the naming process? Will the blue skin pass as easily to the next generation as it did this time around? Tune in next time with SiMania Admods: the Musical! for the answers to these questions.

As always, thank you for reading and please visit us at SiMania!