Sims 4 Legacy Challenge, Part 2: Thom Pulls a Ned Fulmer

(For those who missed Part 1, here is that post: Sims 4 Legacy Challenge Part 1)

This is Part 2 of my Sims 4 Legacy Challenge. I highly recommend going back and reading part one, linked above, if you are new here, but the basics of this challenge are that I play a single family in the Sims, and create a matriarch. This matriarch starts with no money and an empty lot and has to build a house that will support ten whole generations of Sims, and then make a legacy that will last after her death.

I feel like now is a good time to tell the story of my first time playing with this family. Let’s go back in time to the first iteration of these two.

See, on my first play through with this family, I wanted them to be living in separate houses at first because I wanted it to be kind of realistic to how they fall in love in my WIP; in my WIP he’s a tavern-keeper’s son and she’s the daughter of a magistrate, so they obviously wouldn’t live together until after marriage. But during one of their dates, Rose mentioned that Thom would make a good father and asked if he’d ever consider having kids someday, to which he enthusiastically said “Yes!”

..Well, a few days later, Thom called Rose with some good news. Turns out, he took her at her word when she said he’d be a great father. He’d gone and adopted a toddler without a second thought! THE BETRAYAL!!! xD

Rose and I were both SO mad at him. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with adoption per se, and Rose might have even considered it in the future, but she’d wanted their first child to be a biological child with Thom, and to wait a few more years before becoming parents. I tried playing Thom’s household and making him be such a terrible caregiver that the toddler would be taken away by social services, but nothing I did got that toddler out of the house. I ended up deleting Thom and re-downloading him from the gallery, sticking him and Rose in the same household so I could watch his every move, and cheating their romance back to its previous iteration. After that, we had one more snafu that made me need to re-download Rose and cheat their romance again, but that’s in part 3.

Okay, now back to my legacy challenge!

Last we saw, Rose and Thom had just welcomed baby Magnolia into the family. When it came time to name her daughter, Rose made another rule for her family: all female children will be named after flowers, trees, or other nature-related things, while boys will be given family names. (This rule did not exist in my first playthrough, by the way; in that save file, Rose had seven children, two of whom do not follow this naming convention whatsoever) At this point, the male family names they have are Thom/Thomas , Osric (Rose’s father), Maximillian (Thom’s adoptive father), Torren (Thom’s birth father), and Thom’s brothers Finlay, Alexander, and Chase. Later on, as Magnolia or other heirs grow up and get married, they might bring in other family names through their spouses.

After the birth of their daughter, Rose and Thom fell in love with Magnolia and fell even deeper in love with each other. While Magnolia was still a newborn, Rose and Thom had her bassinet in their room. But once she started crawling, Thom built her a nursery of her very own.

Thom’s theme for the nursery was a nighttime/stars theme, and Rose loved it. Thom, being a doting father, also bought his daughter a ton of new toys to play with that will help her development.

Rose and Thom quickly fell into a routine. During the daytime, Rose went off to work as a web designer, and then once she got home, Thom dashed off to his evening shift as a comedian. They were succeeding in their careers and as new parents, and they were thriving.

Rose feeds Magnolia in the high chair. Magnolia is having none of her mother’s nonsense and refuses to try any baby foods. But Rose is persistent and gets to know Magnolia and how to handle her.

Magnolia was not a very easy baby, and gave her parents plenty of trouble, especially at nap time. Being autistic, Rose couldn’t handle Magnolia’s crying at times, so Thom often volunteered to be the one to put Magnolia to bed. But Rose chipped in at other times, so it never felt like Thom was taking on all the work for himself.

Baby Magnolia gets her very first bath!

It was also about this time that Thom and Rose decided to add some rooms to the house. They added a bedroom for Magnolia, an extra bathroom, and made the front garden look much nicer.

Exterior of the Perry house. It’s also right next to a nice playground, so when Magnolia gets a little older, she’ll have somewhere to play!Floor plan of the new house. Rose and Thom added a new bathroom and a bedroom for when Magnolia gets a little older, and then the nursery is the darkened room in the back of the house.

At this point, I remembered to go back and check the point system. See, in the Legacy challenge, you also get points for doing various things during the challenge, with a total of 100 points possible. Some of the things to do to get points include having ten children in one generation, or having certain items in the house, etc. One thing mentioned in the point system was having lots of dinner parties and lots of friends. So to celebrate their new digs, Rose and Thom hosted their first-ever dinner party, invited all their friends over, and had a grand old time. I usually micromanage the heck out of my Sims, but during the dinner party, I figured I could give them a bit more autonomy, since they both had the day off the next day, Magnolia had just gone down for a nap and would sleep for at least a few hours, and I’m terrible at socialization, even in video games. But then Thom decided to pull a Ned Fulmer and cheat on his wife. Being the goofball that he is, Thom cracked a joke with Rose’s friend Liberty, and Liberty got the wrong idea and thought Thom was flirting with her. You can imagine my surprise when all of a sudden, I saw that Rose was pissed about “spouse cheating on her” and Thom had a flirting interaction. I immediately gave Thom a command to stop talking to Liberty, and resumed micromanaging him.

After the dinner party, Rose confronted Thom about how hurt she is that he’d flirted with her friend, and he apologized. He didn’t intend for it to come off that way, and he promised to make it up to Rose.

After this, I swore my Sims would never have autonomy again because I could no longer trust them. xD The dinner party ended without further incident, but Rose developed a lifelong fear of Thom cheating on her. (Sidenote: therapy doesn’t exist in the Sims, at least not that I’m aware of. If a Sim develops a fear of some sort, the only way they can deal with it is by performing a very specific interaction, and even after doing that interaction, the fear is still there–it goes away for a while and then comes back. I am the daughter of two psychologists and I am a huge advocate for therapy and mental health, so this really irritates me that the Sims doesn’t have any representation for going to therapy, etc. which is very demonized in our culture. If you are a Simmer and you know of an expansion pack/mod that lets your Sims go to therapy and deal with their problems, please let me know in the comments what it’s called so I can look it up and install it! xD)

During my first playthrough with this family, Thom developed a passion for violin and I wanted him to rediscover that. In an effort to reassure Rose that his affection will never stray, he serenaded her with a violin song.It was at this very moment, when he was painting a lovely nature scene, that Thom developed a “fear of death.” It made no logical sense. At the time, it was about 3 PM on a lovely afternoon. He’d never had anyone close to him pass away. He was still only about 25 at the time. Yet all of a sudden, as he finished his painting, he decided “Death is coming and it’s scary! I’m going to die someday!” He also developed a “fear of failure” despite being a master painter, musician, and comedian.

So basically, for the rest of his life, Thom is going to have a “fear of death” and “fear of failure.” The “fear of failure” was especially annoying; I couldn’t do anything to solve it (I tried doing the interaction to make it better: you’re supposed to have your Sim create something and then “show it off” to someone else in the household. Alternatively, while your Sim is at work, you can tell them to “ask for performance review” and their boss will praise them, but the “ask for performance review” never actually worked, and when Thom tried to “show off” his paintings to Rose or his friends, the game never registered it properly, so we’re just going to ignore it when we can.) The “fear of failure” often made him sad and hard to deal with. WHICH IS WHY I WANT THERAPY IN THIS GAME! SIMS 4: GO TO THERAPY EXPANSION PACK MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!

Also in the point system is one point for honoring the founder and each heir by having someone dedicate a song, painting, etc. to them. I decided that for each heir, someone else in the family would paint a portrait of her sitting in front of a pink background (in honor of Rose’s favorite color) reading a book (in honor of the bookworm trait that is the requirement for inheritance). Here is Rose posing for her founder’s portrait while Thom paints her.

Rose and Thom kept working through their issues together, and then before they could even blink, Magnolia was a toddler. Where had the time gone?

Rose helps Magnolia blow out the candles on her very first birthday cake! Dad had to work late and missed the party, but there was still plenty of cake for him when he got home.Rose potty trains Magnolia. She is so happy she won’t have to change Magnolia’s dirty diapers anymore–the god who controls her life will instead keep a close eye on Magnolia’s potty need and remind her to potty!

One thing I really like about the new Parenthood pack is that there’s so many more options for interacting with your children. You can now teach your child how to say please and thank you, how to say say sorry, etc. There’s even a “parenting” skill that helps the Sims feel more realistic; after all, in reality when you have multiple children, you tend to get better at parenting with each new baby.

Thom teaches Magnolia about how to say please and thank you, but she is having none of that nonsense.Rose teaches Magnolia various animals using flash cards.Impromptu family dance party!Magnolia got bored of dancing, so she asked her daddy to play with her!

And yet there was still one problem remaining. Yes, Magnolia could be the heir to Rose’s legacy… that is, if she developed the “bookworm” trait. But what if Magnolia never got the bookworm trait? So one day, Rose approached Thom and said she wanted another baby, just in case Magnolia wasn’t eligible for her heir.

Of course, Thom was ecstatic about having a second baby. He thought it was great idea!

However, they did want to wait just a little bit–Magnolia was still a toddler, and very needy, and their jobs were very time-consuming. So they promised each other that once Magnolia started going to school, they would try for another child.

Magnolia’s birthday to become a child!

Once she aged up to a child, I got to roll for her first trait of three. Instead of using the in-game trait randomizer, I found the official randomizer on the Sims 4 Legacy Challenge website, which I felt was a much better option, as it seemed more likely to take into account the parents’ traits when assigning traits to the offspring, and we do kinda want Magnolia to inherit her mother’s love of books. xD

Turns out Magnolia did not get the bookworm trait as a child. She got the Goofball trait, which was obviously her father’s contribution. But that’s okay. She’s got two more traits, one when she ages up to a teen, the other when she becomes an adult. So for now, Rose and Thom went ahead with their backup plan: have another baby, hope it’s a girl, and hope she gets the bookworm trait, too.

Hoping to influence her daughter into becoming a bookworm so she can inherit the Legacy, Rose introduces Magnolia to some of her other hobbies. One of which is chess; she and Thom started playing early in their marriage and it became one of their favorite things to do together. Magnolia picks up the game quickly and she and Mom spend lazy afternoons together playing.Rather than converting the nursery into a bedroom, Mom and Dad opted to keep the nursery for baby #2 and give Magnolia a brand-new room. Magnolia inherited her mother’s love of the color purple, so that was the color scheme they went with. They also bought Magnolia a new dollhouse as a birthday present!Magnolia going off to school all by herself for her very first day of elementary school!Rose is so excited for her daughter to be going to school that she tries to help Magnolia with homework, but Magnolia is having none of her mother’s nonsense, as usual.Magnolia went from being a difficult baby to a difficult toddler and now to a difficult child. One of her favorite hobbies is making a mess all over the nice carpet. Dad takes no pleasure in scolding her for it and makes her clean it up.

At this point the Legacy challenge is looking grim. Magnolia doesn’t have the Bookworm trait, she’s being difficult and needy, and Rose and Thom are too tired from working and parenting Magnolia to even try for a new heir.

Magnolia is supposed to be in bed, but instead insists on watching her parents’ every move. They can’t even have a little bit of privacy for flirting! How will they ever make another baby?Thom came home from work especially stressed, but seeing his wife and daughter always perks him up!

Rose and Thom decided to take a family vacation. No one could agree on where, until Rose remembered a little neighborhood AirBnB that was meant for weekend getaways. So they made a reservation, packed up their things, and headed out in the car for their first family vacation.

To be continued, in Part 3, coming Tuesday, June 27th, at this same time!