So I’m back. Woot. Or something like that. Fair warning this was written while I was going through some nasty personal crap. So the funny isn’t as funny. You have been warned.

Last time, lifts were lifted and people died. When we left, Wally Doran had just lifted Law and Babs was pregnant with Glitch!Baby.

The lifts that will be happening this chapter were all picked in a poll hosted on my livejournal. I will have a link to a new poll at the end of this chapter.

So shall we get started? How about a tour of the house?

Ground floor with the Apocavan.

Main floor. It hasn’t changed much since the day I started. We just have a better fridge, a few pieces of artwork, and an easel.

Up next is the sleeping floor. We only have 4 beds and the toddler blanket, surrounded by a floor dividers. As you can see the extra bathroom space is being utilized.

The pretty empty 3rd floor. I pretty much only use this to shove the meditators. We have the piano and a cheap computer for those people who want to write novels. Most of the time it stays shifted to a non-chair side so that they can’t play SSX3 or browse for their hobby things.

Finally the roof. Random other computer that keeps getting gifted to my people through networking and the logic toddler toy. I also throw unused Elixir up here as needed.

Finally we have the death spot with Christy and Eye Candy’s graves. Both of them died of starvation so they are pretty angry.

So now that you’ve seen the place of doom. Let’s get back to the misery, shall we?

Except that Wally just manages to light up the darkness with his smile. He’s like Mary Tyler Moore only without the jaunty hat.

So the fact that he’s dancing with a random social group girl makes me happy.

Although I am beginning to think that she may be a vampire… I mean no damn reflection. And that stare, creepy…

Jean, annoying sim that she is. Manages to get in on the celebratory Law lift fun with a bit of woohoo.

While at the same time Heather here drops off a completely useless date gift. Thank you, Heather. Into someone’s inventory it goes – I think 2.0’s

Side point… note that Wally’s dance partner is now translucent. She’s freaking me out.

So the not really Party over, it is back to skilling. Koriand’r demonstrates that kids can work out to the radio. Useful in getting those 10 body points needed so they can leave the lot… Which we can’t because military is still in force but hey it gives her something to do.

The next morning, Babs goes into labor with the Glitch!Baby.

While at the EXACT same time, 2.0 comes home with the final promotion lifting life of crime.

And instead of mothing to watch the birth he decided to live up to his nickname and showcase his fine physique.

Although Xavier and Wally decided to watch the birth.

A few moments later, we have our Glitch!Baby. Everyone, meet Emma Doran, named after the Ice Queen, Emma Frost from the Marvel Universe. She’s got blonde hair and dark blue eyes.

“Woohoo!!! Another girl!”

“Am I destined to be the only Male of the family?”

It would be fitting, Wally, considering your father’s sibling situation.

Since Babs was utterly miserable, and her want panel was filled with marriage wants. I, being the soft touch that I am, allowed her to feed her new baby her first bottle.

Then I teleported her out to the death spot next to her beloved husband’s grave.

For some reason, Babs seemed resigned to what was going to happen.

She built a snowman.

And made snow angels.

While Babs was dying slowly, life continued to go on in the family.

2.0 went to work showing off his spiff fashion sense.

And Kori celebrated her birthday.

And grew up into a gorgeous sim, with a slightly troubling aspiration. Family. She will not be happy unless she gets married and has chilluns. And well, 2.0 was meant for her sister.

I foresee trouble ahead.

In fact, I was so distracted by Kori’s birthday, that I missed the instant of Babs’ death. It wasn’t until I noticed her portrait had disappeared that I paused the game and found this.

Okay who scared her?!

Dammit, Howard! Way to kill your own wife!

“Like I care! You killed me!”

So?

“This was a mercy killing. I loved her enough to not let her starve.”

Point.

So with that our Gen 2 heiress died, she left a family who will always remember and thank her for making career rewards available.

However, her loss was felt most keenly. Wally, in particular, mourned the loss of his big sister.

Poor Wally, he breaks my heart.

And Jean, seeing her sister’s fate seemed more resigned to her own and finally found a job in Law Enforcement.

I also had another decision to make regarding 2.0, here. He could marry Shayera who is a popularity sim, like him.

Or he could go for Koriand’r, the family sim, and arguably one of the prettiest sims I’ve spawned in game.

Or, I could have him marry Emma here. Yeah she’s a baby, but weirder marriages have happened in an apocalypse.

So yeah choices.

But one I won’t have to make until the girls grow up.

We interrupt this challenge to show you that I not longer have sparkly food. I’ve been making a plate a day and then letting it rot or walkbys help themselves. It’s not really mattered. Noone eats anyway.

The walkbys also add to the ever increasing household friend count. Plus, 2.0 and Shayera like meeting someone new.

“I just want to give you fair warning, sis, your man is mine.”

“What was that? Did you say something, Kori? I’m too busy dancing with Uncle Wally.”

“Oh nothing…”

And since Jean sucks, she got her job on one of the days off. So I had to wait 24 hours before she could go to work…

And the quest for insta-lifts continues. This guy is a Hall of Famer. So he’s got definite potential…

Also that night, Emma grew up into a toddler.

She’s really got the Doran cheeks…

A quick trip to the mirror and a cute new hairstyle to show off her ears and it is up to her big sister to teach her the skills she needs to survive.

Emma here is a Pisces with 4/8/10/3/10 – a full 35 points...

Almost as if she knew that her baby girl had grown up, Babs chose that night to haunt for the first time.

Poor pink ghost heiress…

Since he had taken care of his lift, I decided to set 2.0 to work on his LTW so when Journalism came up first I had him accept it. I still check the paper daily since I am deliberately not fulfilling wants for the teens so I can age them up to accept them if necessary as soon as they drop down into the green. I’ve got one paper stashed with the slacker career already. I am just waiting until politics comes up to age them up.

With one less sim in the house, and three working sims I allowed Xavier to break his meditation streak and take care of his granddaughter.

“Dada?”

“No, Emma. You don’t have a daddy.”

“Dada!”

Jean comes home with a promotion and she is now one day closer to being out of my hair.

The next morning, Shayera slipped into the green and politics came up. So it is anti-elixir time…

Kori also got her doses so that she would age up at 6pm along with Shay.

And I also had her do her homework to clean it up for the last time. She’d had a want to do it so she probably won’t age up too badly with the boost.

Jean gets another promotion…

And is immediately sent back to work to hopefully get another.

I am counting the days to be honest…

“I think you’ve go an admirer, Elton.”

“Shut it, Wally, she’s just a friend!” 2.0 protested talking about the woman on the other end of the phone.

“Just fair warning, if you hurt her, I’ll break your kneecaps.”

“I thought that was my line!”

So with her love interest still chatting away on the phone, Koriand’r grew up into an okay athletic outfit.

“Can I get married now? And have babies? And fall in love?”

Maybe…

And a few moments later, Shayera transitioned into a very horrid and ‘what the hell was I thinking downloading this’ athletic wear. Seriously, I need to pull my military outfits that I used in the Round Robin. This is getting ridiculous.

Also please note who 2.0 is heartfarting. It will be important later.

And while Shayera is still a good looking sim, she is much more interested in getting a job and making friends than spawning the next generation.

“Oh god! I don’t want to get married and die. I want to live! And make friends! And become a media magnate.”

…

“But I don’t want to give up 2.0, we’ve got 3 bolts…”

Yeah that could be a problem with ACR, still it isn’t the most important thing…

I pulled out the slacker paper holder and gave it to Kori and had Shay go after the current day’s paper. And I got a mild surprise, somehow they were switched. Which confused the crap out of me. So I had them put them exchange papers. I really wanted Kori in slacker since she didn’t have the skills that Shayera did because of her massively shortened teen years.

However, this strangeness piqued my curiosity so I did an experiment. I hoarded the papers in various people’s inventories (mostly Shay’s and Kori’s) until I got 5 papers. Then Every morning I would have 2.0 check the hoarded papers to see what jobs showed up – typically they were the same as the last time I checked them. But if I checked the delivered paper first, the jobs would switch to the new set of offered jobs, just in a different order. Also on any given day, all of the papers would rotate through only 5 jobs. Likely the 5 jobs that show up on the computer, but I didn’t check since that is breaking the rules. So from what I found, you can hold papers in inventory. But if you check the paper everyday, like most of us do, you change what the paper held in inventory shows as the first job. So the benefit of holding papers is that you can potentially see all of the jobs offered on a day show up first. Which can make Journalism lose a lot of its bite, but, you have to sacrifice your inventory slots to do it.

“Xavier, we need to talk.”

“We’re talking now.”

“I know. But about this arranged marriage thing. I don’t want to marry Shayera. I don’t want to marry anyone.”

“That’s too bad, because you’re going to have to marry someone. Do you think I really wanted to get married? I am damned Romance sim!”

“Fine. But at least let me choose which of your two adult granddaughters to marry.”

“Whichever one you get pregnant first. That’s the girl you marry.”

“I can accept that.”

Almost as if the talk with Xavier rejuvenated him, 2.0 zoomed in on Kori.

In less than 30 seconds, he had stolen her first kiss and her heart. Completely ignoring her older sister in the background. However, as much as he liked Kori, he didn’t love her.

(Damn you Romancemod!)

“Does this mean you’ve chosen me?”

“Um…”

“Shhh… You don’t need to say anything. The fact that you’re here with me is all that matters. You know, I’ve been dreaming of this day?”

“You have?”

“Yes. I think I’ve wanted this for as long as I can remember.”

“Well, I shouldn’t keep you waiting.”

One woohoo later and we have a lullaby. Thus sealing 2.0’s fate.

A quick proposal…

Which was accepted… thankfully.

And then an even quicker marriage…

And I am proud to introduce to you the generation three heiress and spouse.

But I do need to say, that while she loves him. He still doesn’t love her. They’ve got 2 bolts, she is his “the one” in ACR, and he is the one that did all of the actions that led to him getting her pregnant.

But he doesn’t love her.

If I were writing plot, let me tell you that right now my plot fairy is screaming at me. Screaming. Deafeningly. And for a moment, I considered playing with this. And then I smacked some sense back into myself and continued blithely on my way.

If I want plot, I’ll go back to my OWBC which I can’t finish until the BC is published… And we don’t even want to talk about the Bachelor Challenge… Pulling teeth is more fun.

Although Jean might disagree. Another promotion and she’s already complaining about her smell.

Go Spongebathe and leave me alone.

And I am beginning to think that all of this Apocalypse living is getting to Xavier. He’s got 10 nice points. But for some reason he wanted to ruin the townie’s painting. I guess he is getting as frustrated as I am with them always cluttering up the easel with their crap paintings.

And a stinky Jean brings home a random townie along with another promotion.

Hey, you, in the back. Stay away from my easel!

We also have Kori celebrating her first promotion…

“I want to stalk my wife. And caress her, and hug her, and kiss her up the arm…”

“Zzzz…”

“Man, waiting sucks.”

Unfortunately, considering that your wife is currently pregnant, I think you will be lucky to get any romantic actions in at all.

Reason 2,945 of why I love Wally: He isn’t afraid to discuss Sad Old Guy’s hotness with passing social group townies.

We love Sad Old Guy…

Reason 2,946 why I love Wally: His stench is powerful enough to turn said social townie green.

That and Shay just got her first promotion.

Fair warning if you haven’t figured it out now, this update is going to be promotion heavy.

“Grr!!! I’m Jean! I’m gonna swallow your soul and blow you to little tiny atoms.”

“What are you on, Kori.”

“I don’t know. I just felt like playing.”

“Well, I don’t. I would rather admire this snapdragon than play that game with you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well you should be.”

“Can you forgive me?”

“Of course I can, I’m you’re husband.”

“Oh, baby!”

“Nice job, young man.”

“I am pleased to see you approve. Now if you will back off. My wife has work to go to.”

So newly popped, Kori heads off to work…

Meanwhile, 2.0 gets rid of Jean’s date gift by foisting it off on Peter Ottomas.

Kori gets home with a promotion…

And immediately sinks down into meditation, much to 2.0’s displeasure. Sorry, 2.0 your wife has a sliver of platinum left and I don’t want to lose it.

A very cold Kori takes off for work in the morning, she hasn’t learned to teleport yet so I was a little concerned.

However, she thawed out and came home with another promotion. At this rate, she is going to lift slacker in a flash.

Her sister, Shayera, is taking things on a more leisurely pace. But she is still racking up the promotions.

“Dear Diary,

I’m a little scared for what the future brings. I know the creator likes me, but I fear some dreadful fate in front of me. Or maybe it is behind me. All I know is that I am worried for what the future brings and Ohhh! Did someone say dancing?!”

That afternoon, Emma aged up into a pretty child.

But she still got a makeover to have her look more like her namesake, Emma Frost. We don’t need to see the ears now, even though they are cool. It also appears that she is growing into her features and will be a lovely sim.

And Kori pops into her third Trimester, breaking her meditation. Oh well, she can always start over.

“Don’t drop me!!!”

“Would I do that?”

“Yes!”

The next morning we got a chance card that gave us a promotion. Although I didn’t mean to pick that option, I misread snooty sims and picked the one with the lower chance of success. I got lucky.

So I decided to press my luck, and sent her back to work.

And she didn’t hit a whammy and came home with another promotion.

I don’t know why Jean and 2.0 came home together and why he was in the back of the police car. But all that matters is that Jean got herself another promotion.

I don’t remember how many she had left at this point.

Oh yeah, and Wally is still hot. Even green-fuming and holding a sponge he is drool worthy.

He’s really got the Doran charisma and unexpected hotness much like his Uncle Ed. He may seem like a doof, but when those eyes…

Okay, I think we all have gotten the point. I like Wally. So sue me.

Moving on…

After Wally finished his distract the creator routine, he ran upstairs to offer a few unhelpful suggestions to his niece who was giving birth.

Koriand’r took it in stride…

And welcomed our gen 4 heiress, Kara Doran. Kara is named after Supergirl and has blonde hair and green eyes.

And no sooner than Kori dropped off Kara on her blanket than 2.0 pulled her into bed to try for a spare.

*stupid pets glitch*

Luckily Kori only had a 60% chance and she rolled a 92.

Whew! The house is full enough as it is!

It’s difficult enough to keep one hyperactive Pleasure sim along with an inquisitive child content.

Especially when they insist on trying break their necks.

Doesn’t Emma, here look like she is plotting something… I don’t trust her. I like her. But I don’t trust her…

We have a triple promotion here and I have to say that most days one of the three brings home a friend from work. It’s nice to add to the family friend count – which is currently hovering at 42.

Kori also gets another promotion that night.

Slacker is an interesting career. One where if you can get promoted in a timely manner you can keep going to work in quick succession. It’s been something like 4-5 days since Kori aged to an adult, and she is currently at level 6.

“Hey Creator! Can I marry this one?”

What?! No! She’s your grand-niece…

“But I don’t recognize her as family and neither does Dad!”

Dammit! Eaxis and your strange family tree coding. I foresee problems ahead. Especially since Xavier has a thing for blondes…

“Did you say my name?”

Ummm… No?

“Yes you did. Something about family trees…”

Technically I typed it. I didn’t say it out loud…

“You’re splitting hairs.”

Semantics. Always an important thing… If anything D&D taught me that with mis-worded wishes.

Make that level seven…

I really do love Kori. She is making the best out of a not great situation and she really a trooper.

Eight…

What? Did you think this was a picture of Wally…

Since she still has a few hours left of her new level, I sent Kori off to work again.

Unfortunately, she missed her daughter’s birthday because of that.

Kara grew up into a cute toddler with the Elf ears.

She is a Gemini with stats of 2/10/8/4/3. She’s going to be a handful… I can already see this.

2.0 was the first to discover her stubborn streak.

“Come on, Kara. You can say Dada.”

“No!”

Kori came home a few hours later, with another promotion – however her want panel only had one thing filling it up.

Her little girl.

I think this is a first. Both parents and child all in the same room together. It kinda makes me want to go awww…

Although I really have something else that I need to have Kori doing…

Like meditating…

It was at this point that I realized something… Everyone in the household was platinum… I’ve never seen this in an apocalypse yet.

Jean continues her rise, she just got promoted to level eight – Swat team leader.

And back to work she goes…

“Mom! Mom! I got an A-plus! Lookee! Lookee!!!”

“OmmmIamnotyourmommmm…”

Shayera is slowly carving her way up the Politics ladder.

And she is still a popularity sim.

Doesn’t Jean look smug…

It’s not because she got promoted… It’s because she’s come home with the flu.

Plague infested wench. She is trying to get even with me for disliking her and planning her death. Well, I’ll show her. She can meditate in the garage away from everyone else. So long as she doesn’t die, I don’t care.

Jean got sent to work the next morning and got a chance card which promoted her to captain hero.

Now her theatrics can’t save her…

A quick meditation session and she finds herself over on the death spot…

Can you hurry up and die? I’d like to move Kara’s spouse in today. After all, it is Tuesday…

“Wah!!! Noone loves me! Where’s Logan or Scott? They’re supposed to take care of me and sweep me away from all of this!”

Okay, she’s not actually crying about that. She’s crying because she peed herself.

Not that I took any pleasure in that… Because that would be cruel…

And to add to my day of celebration, Koriand’r comes home with her final promotion. No doohickey, It got eaten by a person plus plus because she also brought a friend home with her.

But now I can take vacation days, retire, skip chance cards, and retake jobs if I am fired… So Yay! Another lift down…

Xavier invited over the usual group of people for the Tuesday festivities.

I turned the fridge around and let them go.

I had more entertaining things to watch…

It never gets old…

A few minutes after midnight Jean started grasping at her throat…

Gasping for air…

Then fell over dead.

“Another one? That makes two this update.”

Yeah… But I’ve been looking forward to this one.

“Death by disease, huh? Are you sure you aren’t going for a ghost of every color?”

It’d be funny. But no. Besides I can’t put a pool in until medical is lifted. And electrocution/lightning will take some work since Science and Music are kinda verboten at the moment. And well, flies needs culinary to be effective. Old age I can do.

Noone really missed Jean that much and Xavier invited tattooed dormie to move in.

The guy grew up into very nice clothes and I will fix the temporary tattoo thing in a bit…

Meet Glen Killian, who I will be calling Killian, he is a knowledge sim with the lifetime want of maxing out 7 skills. Easy and doable. But even better he came with the degree I was hoping for – Physics. This means that he is destined to lift Paranormal for me.

And because I forgot, here is the screenshot of 2.0’s stats and want. He’s currently in Journalism so he will be permaplat eventually.

I may even let him be my Old Age ghost. If Killian can lift Paranormal in time.

However that does mean I need to find it in the paper…

No dice today… Intelligence, Dance, and Culinary though…

And in a time honored tradition, Killian is set to work fixing the broken sinks.

I am going to admit that I did break out a few random boxes – first the body hair box – because Killian seems like the kind of guy who would have some body hair. And the tattoo box. Because I hate that the maxis tattoos come off in the shower…

“Hi inappropriately dressed niece!”

“Like you’re one to talk Uncle Wally!”

So Emma grew up and rolled romance. Trouble I tell you. Pure Trouble…

However she is a good skiller and she’s got the Doran Bedroom eyes so I can’t complain too much.

“You know I love you, Elton.”

“I know.”

“Do you love me?”

“I’m your husband.”

“But, that doesn’t answer my question. Do you love me or would you have rather been with my sister?”

“Don’t be silly. I chose you for a reason.”

“I guess that makes me feel better.”

Speaking of her sister, Shayera is now only one promotion away from topping Politics.

“Let me at my brother-in-law. I’ll murderinate him for treating my little sister like crap.”

I thought you wanted marry him when you were little.

“I changed my mind when I saw what a jerk he was.”

All thoughts of homicide aside, Shay could still go back to work for hopefully that final promotion…

Which she gets…

Minor annoyance. I wish the sims would stop doing the fricking idle gestures from Freetime, Rubbing your tummy because you got a promotion does not make a lot of sense.

Then I made a very hard decision… One I had been thinking about for a while.

“Dammit! What are we doing out here, Shay!”

“Well, I got promoted.”

“Yeah, I get that. But what am I doing here. I lifted law ages ago.”

“I think the creator was mumbling something about needing room.”

“But both of us…”

“I don’t think she wanted either of us to die alone.”

“But I didn’t want to die at all.”

“We can’t always have what we want, Uncle Wally.”

And is always the way at times like these, Kara grows up into a pretty little girl. Not sure if the sleeveless thing is the smartest clothing choice in a world blanketed in snow. But what do I know?

“Fresh meat…”

“Dammit Daddy! Don’t scare me like that!”

“I’m not your father.”

“He made me pee myself!”

“You might want to take a spongebath…”

“Daddy!”

“Whew! You stink, Shay.”

“She’s tough. I’ll give her that. But she is no match for Howard “Eye Candy” Doran.”

“Daddy!”

“Look if you don’t stop calling me that, I am going to go play by myself.”

“But…”

“No buts!”

“Whee Snow Angel time!!!”

“Daddy!”

“Not listening, Shay!”

“But Uncle Wally, I keep seeing my father.”

“Your father’s dead. You just need to get over it.”

“I would if he would stop scaring me! Eek!”

“I’m starving.”

“I thought you ate at work?”

“You try being scared by a ghost five times and see how your hunger is doing!”

“Yikes! Make that six.”

“I do not know what you are on, Shayera, but you’ve lost it.”

“I don’t think that’s all I’ve lost.”

“Hmmm… What was that?”

“Goodbye, Uncle Wally!”

“Silly Shay, there’s no way off of this Island.”

“Shay?”

“Father, how could you?”

“Shay!!!”

For the first time, people actually come out to mourn a sim’s passing.

I was surprised. But pleased since I liked Shay. She had mettle and she never complained about her lot in life and she let her sister have 2.0 without any complaint.

“So Shay, do you think I should make a mean or a happy snowman?”

Um. Wally. Shay’s dead.

“No she isn’t. She’s just sleeping. She’ll be up in no time and go for a walk.”

I really don’t think so, Wally. Something tells me that Shayera isn’t getting up and going anywhere.

“La La La not listening!”

“My daughter’s dead!”

“Ahhh!!!”

“Stop building this stupid snowman! My daughter is dead! And I killed her! And I’m gonna kill you too! Bwahahahaa!!!”

“Ack!!!”

“Oh gods, Shay’s really dead. I don’t want to believe it.”

“Why is this happening to me?! What did I do to deserve this?”

I’m sorry, Wally. You don’t know how sorry I am.

“But why?!”

It was necessary.

“Why can’t you die already?”

“Dammit Howard you’ve scared the piss out of me.”

“Literally. I’d better clean this up.”

“Boo!”

“Oh Crap!”

“I feel so heavy. I don’t think I can stand any more. Why so serious, Howard? Why-”

“Damn. Two in one day. How many sims have you killed, Howard?”

“Shut up, Death. Look at this. Noone came out and mourned me. But this spare gets mourned by the whole damn family! Just let me at them!”

Howard was right, the whole family came out to mourn Wally’s passing.

Well, all of his blood relatives anyway. Killian didn’t know him very well and was busy skilling on the teleprompter left by Wally and 2.0 couldn’t be bothered.

It was a very hard night for everyone. Including me.

I loved that sim. He made me smile and he brought light into the family.

Still life must go on. And as is very important in apocalypses, spares must be conceived.

Or as is my damn luck, two at once.

Hello multiples, I haven’t missed you that much.

---

Minor meta/reminder.

For those who don’t read my other stories and my not know my luck with multiples lets just say that in my OWBC that I have 6 sets of natural twins, three random trips and quads twins, two sets of triplets. And lets not get started on my turn at the boolprop round robin which ended up with 10 boys out of 4 pregnancies.

So multiples. They like me and they find me.

This was a particularly hard chapter for me to write for several reasons. Mostly because I knew the time was coming where I would have to start killing off my favorite sims.

With Military still firmly in place, and unlikely to go anywhere soon, it is a decision made of necessity.

I did extract Wally, Babs and Shayera before killing them so that they can hopefully have happier lives elsewhere. I will be uploading them at some point. Probably before the next update.

Speaking of which: The next poll is up at my livejournal

http://leilia.livejournal.com/267844.html

I encourage everyone to vote and express your opinion of what you think I should lift next/what career is the next most useless.

Until next time this is disembodied hand bidding you happy simming!