Legacies

By Anidup

I like playing the game. And I like playing legacies..... I make up my own rules to keep my game interesting. 

So you all know I decided to do the History Challenge, though I named mine the Decades Challenge, since I only wanted to run it through a certain period. 

I worked very hard to get the lot scenes done, and I had a great time doing just that. At last I was able to start playing the actual families, and that was quite the challenge.  Having fun was the most difficult part, since there was no electronics during the time, and one can only read so many books. It was a little easier with the kids, since they had activities, but for the adults, having activities that fit the period was quite difficult. I was at the end of the second generation and the storyline was progressing very well! It was fun to play them in the period and have the historical event of the world happen with them. Like the Spanish Flue of 1920.... causing the death of many family members, and the First and Second World War....... again causing the death of male members of the generations, and also one nurse. 

And then disaster struck.......I accidentally deleted the save instead of saving it. And it was impossible to retrieve. (So now I hope EA will change the position of the save and delete buttons! being so close together is making me nervous now. ) I knew, my hard work was lost forever!!

But, it is always refreshing to be able to start something new. And that is what I now did. 

I have only ever played the Goth and Landgraab families, NEVER any of the other. So, I decided to do so this time. It will not be a legacy per se, but I wanted to see what the different families were up to and where they would end up. I also tried to pick up on their stories as "created" by the developers. 

Not so easy, since the game does not always allow gameplay the way I want to structure events to enable me to follow up on the storyline given. I seldom play with full autonomy. Mostly because then they cancel my instructions, and end up wasting their own time..... but I do allow their whims and thoughts to direct me in the way they want to go. 

So, the families I chose to expand on are the following:

Bob and Eliza Pancakes

The Goths (again..... they are epic)

Don Lothario and the Calientes

The Landgraabs  (off course.... what would the game be without them around?)

The Bjergsen family (from Windenburg)

The couple from Brindleton Bay, though I changed their names and can not remember what it was before; but now they are Brent and Clifford Rossouw and their dog Rosie

The Sigworth family from StrangerVille

The Roswell family from StrangerVille ( Just because he is the evil behind what was happening in StrangerVille)

And this time, I promised myself to make back-up saves every time I have played. I do not want to be in the same situation again. 

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BOB AND ELIZA PANCAKES:

You are all familiar with these two. 

Starting the family one reads the following:

"Poor, poor Bob and Eliza - have they ever been happy? It seems there is nothing one can do to please the other. Just what is keeping this couple together? Or, conversely, what's the spark that will finally drive them apart?"

So, when I started to play the household I actually expected them to be at odds with one another. But quite the contrary..... they were actually happy. It did not feel right that I should start out to make them angry at one another if that was not the way they truly felt. 

But I did have a look at their personalities: Bob is a slob, gloomy and a loner. But Eliza is neat, materialistic and a perfectionist. 

And that is where I thought the conflict would be. Poor old Bob only wanted to watch his favorite sport on the television, and Eliza was disturbing him with her frenzied cleaning of the house (Bust the Dust Kit). But, he was too gloomy to get angry, and because he is a loner, he kept it all to himself. 

Eliza, being materialistic, wished for something new every day. And poor poor Bob, was only a Caterer at the time..... not making a lot of money. But Eliza was happy spending the little money he made. And that kept her happy, so she did not mind cleaning up after him.

In a way, the two actually had what they needed to make their marriage work. 

But, I did not want them to have the ordinary married life, neither did I want their marriage to end up in a divorce. So to make the family different I downloaded LittleMsSam's Foster Family Mod. 

This was just what the two needed!! Their first foster child was Erika Inman, a little girl of about seven years old. Soon after she settled in the Foster Care Agency contacted them again, this time they had a toddler boy who was in need of a caring family. They were happy to receive him as well, and so James McMahan came to live with them. 

Soon there after came Luiz Vazquez and Amos Speer. 

Not long after Erika came to live with them, I realized that Bob was less of a loner. He actually turned out to be a great father to the little girl, and Eliza wanted to spend all her time with the little girl. 

Being the perfectionist and neat person she was, she soon influenced Erika to follow suit. (bare in mind that you cannot control the foster kids. They are like the pets, you can only interact with them. Apart from that they follow their own mind).  So Erika was soon seeking the company of her foster mother, and a close bond was formed. They ended up adopting her...... which had the effect that she joined the household as a fully fledged member.

The three boys were still in the system of foster care. For some reason they preferred to interact with Bob. He had a calming effect on them, but as soon as Eliza came to assist them, they reacted with a tantrum. Bob was happy to be around the three of them, not minding being woken in the middle of the night, not even if he was dog tired, and had to get his energy for work the next day. He would patiently wait for them to finish potty or eating if they were hungry.  

(I found it quite hard to work with the toddlers.) They had to work through their tantrums and stubbornness, but Bob and Eliza were rewarded with three lovely boys. 

It was quite a surprise to them when they discovered that the last little boy was a kleptomaniac. Eliza caught him swiping something from their house! He was very embarrassed and hid out in his bed for quite a while. 

On Christmas Day, they adopted the three boys as well. 

Bob, with his negative traits never wished for a moment alone, nor was he gloomy for a minute. Eliza was happy, because now she had to buy new furniture for the kids, and she was able to instill in them all to be neat, and clean up their own messes. 

Both adored each and every child, and they discovered the golden thread that kept them together: their children! 

It was so much fun to play them..... I hardly went to sleep. I was so anxious to see what will happen next, that I kept playing. 

A picture taken when Erika was adopted:

Erika as a teenager:

And then after the three boys were adopted:

They are a very happy family! Love them all. 

Currently Eliza has the whim to have a baby with Bob...... wonder if it will happen and how that will effect the two of them, and the other kids. I will soon tell you more.