::1.6:: This Whole Dad Thing

 Roe and Irene attend the First of Spring Formal (that is, the formal school dance that takes place on the first day of spring),  Roe in a suit bought at a literal costume shop on the Spooky Day clearance aisle, and Irene in a seasonal couture dress with a price tag as ugly as the design.

"I didn't know you were going."  Sunflower hasn't been out of her bathrobe for three days, and pulls it tighter around herself when Roe introduces his girlfriend.  "It's nice to meet you, Irene."

"The limo's waiting," Roe peers out the door window; "I'll be back by ten, Mom."  He gives Irene's arm an affectionate little tug and slips out the door.

 "Stay warm!" Sunflower calls after him.  Most of the snow has melted with the shift of seasons, but the night air still holds a sharp chill.  She glances at Irene anxiously.  "Um, keep an eye on him, won't you?"

"More like he'll be keeping an eye on me, Ms. Moon," Irene grins.  "He's the sane one between the two of us."

Then she's out the door, as well.

Sunflower sighs.  "Just, stay out of trouble."

"Where's Roe?" Elisabeth, fresh from toddlerhood, comes downstairs.  "Charlie's crying again."

"He's at prom with Irene."

Elisabeth rolls her eyes.  "Doesn't he know there's no time for fun in this house?"  She's hardly old enough to go to school, but is already well aware of household dynamics.

"I'll be up to take care of Charlie in a minute, don't worry."

Roe returns home at 9:15 PM.  He and Irene miss the last dance, but she seems to understand his concerns about his mother burning the house down in his absence.  Sure, Sunflower has a thing about checking the stove five times a day, but he can't help worrying.

 Roe and Irene's prom picture becomes the first thing added to the shack that makes it feel like home.

 The dance was fun and all, but the next day it's back to the same old, same old.

Iron Fang is the most colicky of Roe's younger siblings--always howling, clawing, destroying.  None of the humans in the house know quite how to placate her.

Elisabeth, on the other hand, ages up soundly self-sufficient.  Since it's taken for granted that Roe will help shoulder the household responsibilities, Elisabeth has plenty of time to explore the newfound freedom of childhood.

 She's heard stories from Roe, and knows she'll need friends if she wants to survive her upcoming school years.  So she heads to the park to get a lay of the land, and the people she'll be surrounded by for the rest of her life.

 It isn't long before she corners Joelle Mosqueda, the only kid at the park not clamoring over the jungle gym.

Elisabeth conducts a test; she wipes her nose with her hand as she introduces herself.

Then proceeds to shake Joelle's hand with the same snotty fingers.

Whether Joelle is completely oblivious, unusually laid-back, or merely too polite to call Elisabeth out on her gross move doesn't matter.  Any of those options will serve Elisabeth well.  Her goal is to be successful in school while avoiding all the drama; passive friends are what she's looking for.

Now, she must test Joelle's teamwork and ability to follow directions.

"I mostly just keep to myself at school.  It's kind of intimidating to talk to new people.  " Joelle confesses.  She peeks at Elisabeth from around the faceless snowhead.  "You don't seem scared, though."

"Just stick with me, Joelle," Elisabeth says.  "I'm gonna kick school's butt."

Success: friendship acquired.  Two friendships, actually, if you count Sir Classic Snowsim.

A few feet away, Joelle's mother, Paige Mosqueda, famous around town for defeating a werewolf in an eating contest, is ill-dressed--even by springtime standards.

"She's really good at the starfish technique," Elisabeth offers.  She can sense Joelle is a bit embarrassed.

Some of the older kids spent the afternoon building an igloo, so once they leave, Elisabeth and Joelle brave a closer look.

"Be careful," Joelle squeaks, "what if there's a yeti?  Or worse, one of the teenagers is still in there?"

"Yetis aren't real.  And teenagers probably aren't, either."

She ducks inside.

"No yetis?" Joelle calls cautiously.

"No yetis."

Back home, Sunflower is reenacting Lunar Lakes' most popular folktale, The Great Yeti Invasion.  Historians are divided on whether or not it actually happened.

"How was the park?  Did you meet anyone nice?"

"I'm satisfied with the results," Elisabeth answers cryptically.

One friend isn't enough, though.  It takes three to make a proper team, in Elisabeth's opinion.  All the best books she's read have three plucky protagonists.

So she strikes up a conversation with the paper girl.  "Hey, you go to school in town, right?"

"Yeah, but it sucks," the paper girl replies.  "I only get to go for half the day because of this dumb paper delivery job, so everyone thinks I'm weird.  And I always miss recess."

"Can't you just quit your job?" Elisabeth asks.

"I'm a warden of the state, it's required."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't have parents."

"Oh..."

"Yeah."

"Where did they go?"

"Don't remember."

"Oh.  My mom's the same way."  Elisabeth pauses, thinking.  "Alright.  Hang out with me at school.  I'll introduce you to my friend Joelle.  It'll be fun."

The paper girl narrows her eyes.  "You want something from me, don't you?"

"Just your friendship," Elisabeth says easily.  "And... maybe some help with a few ideas."

Time passes.  More snow melts under the spring sun.  Charlie grows some hair and gains some freckles.

And Sunflower is finally ready to return to work, after what feels like a lifetime of maternity leave.

"We were taking bets in the lab on whether on not you'd actually come back," Gretel Sekemoto laughs on the other end of the line.  "Christina Landgraab-Royal owes me twenty simoleons."

That ladder is definitely a safety hazard, Sunflower frets.

Despite the fact that things are going rather well, these days, she frets over a lot.

She tries to keep the full-blown freakouts contained to the garden, though, so as not to upset the kids.

 Then, after her first day back at work, she comes home to this.

"He let himself in," Elisabeth informs her without looking up from her book.  "He says he's, uh, Dad."

"Sunny!" Denn chirps, hurrying to stand.

 WHERE

HAVE 

YOU 

BEEN???

 "I always travel to a warmer climate in the winter," Denn stammers, caught off guard.

"You disappeared!" Sunflower shouts, too furious to notice Elisabeth awkwardly taking her book to another room; "For an entire season! With no explanation!"

"I told you I was leaving town before the snow came!"

"How was I supposed to know that's what you meant??"

 "Do you have any idea how worried I was?" Her tone turns pleading without her permission.  "Does that not matter to you at all?"

"I--"

Any further escalation is halted by the soft jingle of Iron Fang's birthday.

Though Elisabeth and Charlie seem understandably put-off by the strange man who showed up out of the blue, something in Iron Fang's instincts draws her to him; tells her she can trust him.

Biting her tongue, Sunflower goes to search the house for the rest of her kids.  Roe is most likely still at his part-time job, but she probably should explain things to Elisabeth.

Iron Fang completely monopolizes her father's attention for the next hour, and now that she's in her state of post-freakout tranquility, Sunflower isn't sure what else to do besides carry on as she normally would.

Dinner is uncomfortable, and Roe is stony throughout, but Elisabeth still has questions.  "If he's our dad, then why doesn't he live with us?  Why is he just showing up now?"

"Eat your birthday salad, Elisabeth," Sunflower says tiredly.

The kids are put to bed early, and Denn starts to make himself at home--though for the first time, he has the mind to be sheepish about it.  "I hope you don't, um, mind if I eat something."

Sunflower doesn't reply at first, but eventually she relents; "You must be hungry."

The spring frosts still plague Lunar Lakes after sunset, and for all her anger, hurt, and confusion, Sunflower can't bear the thought of Denn sleeping on a park bench.

He stays the night.

"Just like that, huh?" Roe muses dryly the next day.

"I guess so," Sunflower sighs.

Denn leaves early under pretense of a morning hunt, so for a moment, the house is back to normal.

"I don't know how I feel about this whole 'dad' thing," Elisabeth announces over breakfast.

"I do," Iron Fang says through a mouthful of off-brand cereal; "He's awesome."

"Be thankful you have a dad, Lissie," says Roe.

"Denn said he's your dad, too, you know," Iron Fang tells him.  Roe thins his lips and says nothing.

"I don' think he's anyone's dad," Elisabeth grumbles.  "I think he's making it all up."

The bus arrives, so they head for the door.  

"You're just jealous because I've got his pointy ears and you don't," Iron Fang throws over her shoulder.

Elisabeth scowls.  "You are so annoying."

☾

Misc: ...This chapter still had 10+ picture's worth of content planned, but at that point, a bunch of things that weren't really related to each other were all happening at once.  Seemed a little confusing and unwieldy to me, so I'm chopping it off here.

I realized I haven't listed any of the kids' traits yet, so here we go:

Roe - loner, hates the outdoors, adventurous, neat (all of his traits were out of my control, but how are adventurous and hates the outdoors not in direct contradiction with one another??)
Elisabeth - friendly, disciplined, computer whiz
Iron Fang - brave, loves the outdoors, good sense of humor
Charlie - genius, friendly

These are only up until this point in the legacy, obviously, so I'll try to remember to update you as they continue to age.

And just for funsies:

Denn - night owl, family oriented, loves the outdoors, brave, absent minded
Irene - absent minded, excitable, insane, night owl

I've also added a few new pages to the blog.  One covers the ways I've customized/changed this challenge (plus things like a list of mods), and one is a list of other Sims 3 legacy blogs you should check out if you're bored and want more reading.

The song of the day is Italian alternative. :o

::1.5:: Winter

Winter arrives at Lunar Lakes, fluttering over scorched, barren earth unquestioned.

Sunflower has searched everywhere.  Asked every townsperson she could.  Denn is nowhere to be found.

What she expected to be an absence lasting only a few days, maybe a few weeks, has turned into months.  She'd even asked her boss to run a search for him in the town database, once she was too desperate to worry about appearing stalkerish.

"Denn Wilder?" Gretel Sekemoto had frowned when the results popped up on her office computer screen, ignoring the way Sunflower hovered anxiously over her shoulder.  "It says there's no resident registered by that name.  Are you sure that's who you met?"

It's hard not to doubt, at this point, but it doesn't really matter.  She's pregnant again.

But his disappearance is all she can think about.  What if he decided he wants nothing to do with her and their family, and has left for good?  Did she scare him away with all the talk about living together?  What if he's hurt somewhere, with no one to help him?

Or worse?

 Roe, now a teenager, takes over a large portion of the household chores.

(A pointless close-up for those who care about that sort of thing.)

It isn't that his mother is completely absent, but she spends most of her time out looking for Denn or worrying herself into a frenzy at home, these days, especially after her job forced her onto maternity leave, giving her nothing to fill her time.

When she isn't mid-meltdown, she's sleeping...

...or indulging in escapism.

"Eugh, this fridge reeks.  I thought you took out the old food last night?"

"Guess I forgot."  Roe yawns, pats Elisabeth on the head.  "Sorry, Mom."

 Frustrating as it is, he can't bring himself to blame his mother.

He feels stupid for feeling betrayed.  Denn was the man he'd chosen as his father figure from the first time they met, but maybe that bond wasn't as mutual as he'd assumed.

 He tries to find ways to get out of the house whenever he can.  Studying at the library is a great excuse, though most of the time he ends up doing something more mindless.

 "How am I losing against myself?"

Iron Fang grows quickly through the winter, oblivious to her family's angst.  She has just enough of Denn in her appearance--forest-green eyes, elfish ears, pointed canines--to make Sunflower's heart hurt.

Roe loves his sisters with every fiber of his being, but filling the role of second parent is... a lot.

"Your name is Iron Fang Wilder-Moon.  Can you say that?  Eye-ern-fan-guh.  Wy-yul-der.  Moon.  But not moon like the ones in the sky.  A different kind of Moon."

What is she talking about?  Sunflower doesn't even know what that means.

"I'm going crazy," she groans.

"Crazy!" Iron Fang parrots.

A few hours later, Roe returns from his part-time job as a spa receptionist to find his mother going into labor.  "Oh!  Um...!"

"Stay here and watch the girls," Sunflower orders as she waddles toward the door.  "I already called the cab."

 The swift, chaotic departure of her mother stresses little Iron Fang out, which she expresses through destruction of property.

Her tiny baby claws are not strong enough to leave any kind of noticeable mark, so all she does is disrupt the dust collecting beneath the chair.

Still, Roe feels obligated to discipline.  "Uh, bad werewolf!  Bad!"

Of course, when has a werewolf ever cared about the opinions of humans?

Knowing when to let things go, Roe changes out of his work uniform and settles down for strawberry pancakes, leaving Iron Fang to tire herself out.

By the time Sunflower returns from the hospital with baby Charlie, her were-child has forgotten what she was upset about.

"Finally, another boy in the house," Roe grins.  Then, glancing over his shoulder at Iron Fang alseep in her crib, having no desire to incur the same wrath he witnessed earlier in the evening, adds, "Your sisters are totally great too, of course."

For whatever reason, the delivery of her newest child lifts Sunflower's spirits, and she tentatively begins to take care of the household again.

Starting with pancakes!

She returns to work, and saves enough money to separate the basement into two proper bedrooms.  After the expansion, there's little money left for actual furniture, but she spends a few evenings on a paint job, which hopefully lessens how depressingly bare it is.

She now has a bedroom to herself, as well, while the ladder, along with a new bookshelf, are located in a main entryway.

And with the last of the savings, the younger children are finally provided some educational toys.

That ladder has got to be a safety hazard...

Roe knows he'll have to share the room with a sibling (or two, or three) eventually, but that doesn't stop him from enjoying the solitude while it lasts.

 He also, finally, finds some time to focus on other things.

He and his friend Irene agree to meet at the art museum on a Saturday.

"For an establishment that relies solely on visuals, this place sure is poorly lit," Roe remarks.

"And the art is... hm," Irene agrees, as though her orange flippers give her any room to talk.

"Listen," Roe begins, ignoring her choice of footwear; "I wanted to apologize that we haven't been hanging out as much since high school started.  I didn't mean to ghost you, it's just my family, you know?  My mom has been pretty out of it lately, and she needs a lot of help with my younger sisters, and now she just had a baby and..." He realizes he's rambling.  "Just wanted to say sorry, I guess."

To his relief, Irene smiles kindly.  "Roe, I get it.  When my parents had my younger brother, all the attention went to him.  I mean, we hired a live-in nanny, so none of us actually had to do anything, but still.  I know what you mean."

Roe's shoulder sag with a laugh.  "You haven't changed at all, have you?"

"Neither have you."  Her words are teasing, but her expression is serious; gentle.  "You cared just as much about your family when you were a kid, too.  Always running home early to make sure everything was okay.  I remember.  Pretty admirable, if you ask me."

Neither of them are expecting it, but in spite of the atrocious spotlights and grody installation pieces, it feels like the right moment, anyway.

Roe pulls back quickly.  "Sorry, I should have asked first."

Irene takes his hands.  "I'm wearing scuba fins, Roe.  I think I need someone who's a little unpredictable."

☾

Misc: MTS user TwistedSmiley asked for scenic shots of Lunar Lakes a few chapters ago, but right when I went into the game to take them, winter began, so for chronology purposes,  I wasn't able to use them in the blog until now.  Hopefully I can grab a few more in the other seasons, because obviously the place is meant to be a more arid climate.

At this point in the legacy, I had completely forgotten about Sunflower's "Property Mogule" generational goal, so I was spending every meager paycheck she and Roe earned on making the house more livable, when that shouldn't have been my priority at all.  It'll be a few more chapters until we get to the part where I remembered and panicked, though.