Last we left the Shanleys, Tristan had become a teen and Vesta, my heiress, had become a child. They were coping well with the unexpected death of their father, Patrick, who was frightened to death by his grandfather’s ghost. Even though Patrick was a Knowledge Sim, his needs were sufficiently low that seeing Devin’s ghost killed him on the spot. That leaves Marie, his widow, free to romance all the men of Mt. Geneva without compunction. Not that anything was stopping her before…

Her son Tristan is following in her footsteps, but he’s taking his time. Since he is extremely shy, he has been easing into the life of a Romance Sim by chatting up the neighbor girl, Sheila. They seem to hit it off pretty well.

“You have, um, interesting features, Tristan…are you by any chance a Legacy Sim?”

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OK, huge update tonight, folks! I spent many hours playing my Legacy Challenge family yesterday but didn’t have time to update, so I saved it for tonight. It was fun to get back to my Sims after being away for a week, but I have to admit I rushed through gameplay a bit (in other words, I hit Pause every five minutes instead of every five seconds) because I’m eager to finish the challenge. I also discovered that if I put the Textures back on Medium, I no longer had slowdown or crashing problems. (I can keep them on High in Shanley Cottage with no problems, I guess because that lot isn’t as old, big, or buggy.) Anyway, on with the update!

When we last left the Shanleys, Patrick (5G heir) and Marie’s first child Tristan had just become a toddler. Shortly thereafter, I had them try for a baby again so I could have a spare heir in case something happened to Tristan. Marie became pregnant, naturally, and I eagerly awaited the birth of her next child. In the meantime she was burning food right and left — just like Kaylynn from a couple generations back. Why do pregnant women with Cooking scores of 10 end up burning food so much? Is it built into the game that way, or does it only seem like it happens more often with pregnant women? I have no idea, but it makes me chuckle.

“I guess this is why you only delivered the pizzas.”

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I took a break from my Legacy Challenge family the past few nights and caught up with Taryn Shanley’s family. Taryn is Fiona’s sister and the only non-heir to continue the family line. It’ll be interesting (to me at least) to see if I can keep all three houses connected until 10th generation appears on the scene. Will Fiona’s and Taryn’s great great great grandchildren even know each other? I hope we find out soon.

Things have been relatively quiet at Taryn’s house, which I’ve dubbed Shanley Cottage due to its postage-stamp size. It’s actually kind of nice to play a smaller house after the choppy buggy slowness that is Shanley Manor. I can turn my textures up to High in Shanley Cottage and not notice any difference in the smoothness of gameplay. Back at Shanley Manor I have to turn them down to Medium, or things slow way down and sometimes crash the game.

Here’s the Shanley cousin, Eleanor, having breakfast with her mom Taryn. I think they have very similar features except for the nose — Eleanor’s has this ski jump thing going on with hers, while Taryn’s is very straight and pointy, like Fiona’s and Kaylynn’s.

“Hey Mom, could you cough up my allowance for this week? Thanks.”

I wanted Aidan and Rian to move in with Taryn and Hugh in order to make room for all of the extra Shanley kids at Uncle Liam’s, so I had Taryn invite Aidan over and ask him to move in. He refused at first, so I had to build up their relationship score a bit and try again. This time he accepted.

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Generation 6 is finally here! Marie gave birth to a boy named Tristan (suggested by Mary and Lani). He has his mother’s bright blue eyes and his father’s brown hair and skin tone. Well, he doesn’t have hair yet, but you know. Marie’s aspiration level was sufficiently high enough that she suffered no aspiration failure from having a baby, so that’s good.

“Who’s my little pumpkin smoochie woochie kins?”

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Last we left the Shanleys, Marie Mazza the pizza girl and potential mankiller had moved into the manor, while Stefaan, the youngest Shanley, had been accepted into private school — the first of the 5G kids to do so! I managed to get Marie engaged to Patrick, but the hardest part was yet to come — they needed to get married without sending Marie into severe aspiration failure.

Since Marie wanted to be best friends with a few of the new people she had met, I concentrated on fulfilling those wants so I could put her in platinum. I figured the quickest way for two Sims to become best friends is to have them fall in love — if I’m not mistaken, interactions like “Make Out” will raise the Lifetime relationship score more quickly than your usual “Chat” and “Joke” interactions. So Marie went on a seducing spree.

Her first victim was Lenny Squire, from a group of bachelors I created when I first got the game. Lenny quickly fell prey to Marie’s friendly banter and lavish praise. A little kissing didn’t hurt, either. Within a day, they were best friends.

“Has anyone told you that you look like Brad Pitt? No, really, you do!”

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Ever since Fiona had her last child, I’ve been eager to get started on generation 6 in my Legacy Challenge family. Patrick, my 5th gen heir, just needed to marry someone, and I had just the right person lined up — Marie Mazza, the pizza girl. At least, I thought she was the right person. After moving her into the house, I discovered she was a Romance Sim. I haven’t had a Romance Sim yet in my Legacy family (though I’ve played them in other families), so I was a bit dismayed. I know I could have looked it up beforehand and saved myself the trouble, but I thought it would be more fun to be surprised. Silly me.

Before I moved her in, I wanted to have her and Patrick fall in love. They were already friends, so it was just a matter of inviting her over and sending them off to flirt and kiss somewhere. First she had dinner with Patrick’s parents, Fiona and Robi.

“So how many kids do you want to have? Seven? Eight? It’s really not too bad once you get past all the throwing up.”

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