"Dad, are you okay?" Once the cowardice-suppressing elixir wore off, Lydia was not pleased with herself about what she did to her father, and used a cure on him immediately.
"I'm fine, just a little tired," he says, oblivious. He remembers nothing from his short time as a shambling, useless zombie.
Neither does Laurel. Laurel was freaking out so much, Lydia threw a cure potion at her too.
Lydia smiles weakly. "Do you believe in magic?"
"Nope," he says, without bothering to question where this came from.
"Are you sure there's nothing weird about us? You told me my great-grandfather was a werewolf..."
"I told you my mother told me my grandfather was a werewolf," Lynx corrects her. "I didn't tell you I believed her."
"What if it was true?"
Lynx frowns at her. "A lot about my mother's history before she came to Aurora Skies is suspect. Don't be daft, Lydia. You're too old for this and I'm too old for this. There are no monsters under your bed, there are no mermaids in the ocean, there are no werewolves in Monte Vista."
Solana is fascinated by Lydia's elixirs, and vows to keep her mouth shut for the time being, in exchange for the recipes and raw materials so she can do her own research on them.
"First of all, I want to make myself immune to your memory wiping cure potion," she says.
"It wasn't that awful!" Lydia defends herself. "It only took away like ten minutes of Laurel's memory."
The chemical mixtures Solana comes up with after hours in the school lab are not the same as what Lydia can create with the alchemy book at her side... and even when Lydia sneaks the book to her, Solana's results are different. Lydia is special, in some way Solana cannot yet define.
Unfortunately, graduation is coming up soon, and Solana's top priority is to finish her senior project. The stuff with the nanites and the plumbots. So she has to put her investigation of the paranormal on hold.
She cautions Lydia to try to take less of the potions she's been hooked on, since they are obviously compromising her judgment, and Lydia agrees, though she keeps her job at the alchemist shop, honing her skills and hoarding simoleons.
Solana is a little jealous of that. She's perpetually broke, spending all of her allowance on bot materials.
In total, Solana creates twelve bots for the school to sell to local businesses.
Lynx's three daughters age up and graduate from high school.
Solana is the Valedictorian. Her former classmates vote her Most Likely to Take Over the World.
Close up of Solana...
...and Lydia...
...and Laurel.
And some pics of Lynx playing basketball with Arne, because that's cute.
Lydia's boyfriend has also aged up. She calls him over to the house to discuss their future plans.
Their relationship has been strained since she stopped drinking the potions, but Vern's friendly smile still melts her heart. She tells him about how Solana and Arne are going off to university together to become mad scientists or whatever, and Lydia would like to go to university as well, even though Laurel doesn't want to. Laurel's getting into professional sports, right here in Aurora Skies.
"It's so stupid. Going to university can help with a sports career too! But she's being obstinate about this." Lydia doesn't like that the trio is splitting up. It's a new thing, on top of all these other new things, and it's scary. Part of her wants to stay here, in her childhood home, with her twin sister, but that would mean accepting that adulthood is here, and she'd really prefer the buffer of college, so she can sort herself out.
Vern smiles and nods. "So what are you majoring in, if not science?"
"Umm... communications. Don't look surprised! I've always liked journalism, I was just too nervous to sign up for journalism things in high school. Anyway, I'm pretty scared to leave home, but I need to do it! I need to see new things," Lydia takes a deep breath. "I think I'd be less scared if you went with me, Vern."
Vern looks down at his hands for a moment and wrings them together. "Listen, Lydia... I've been doing some thinking about our relationship, and I just feel like we're going in different directions."
Lydia feels her heart sink. "I could rethink university..."
"No, no. It's not that," he says quickly. "I just think it would be a bad idea for me to follow you. It's a lot of money, and it's not something I want. And for a while, things have felt... different... between us. I don't know if I did something wrong, but it's like you got quiet and nervous and shy again... after I thought things were going well and you were opening up. I'm sorry if I did something to upset you."
"You didn't..."
"No matter what I do, I can't seem to impress you like I did when we first started dating."
"No, Vern, you impress me..."
"I need a break, Lydia. And I think you'll do great at university without me to distract you."
Their teenage romance ends with a sad and awkward farewell hug.
Lydia wants to cry.
The next morning, her family has one last breakfast together before she and Solana leave for university. It's Eggs Machiavellian, and the quality is perfect.
Lydia is freaking. Out.
Arne comes over to pick them up and drive them to the train station.
Lydia feels a stab of jealousy, seeing him and Solana interact so easily and affectionately. They know each other better than Lydia and Vern ever did, so it's not like the comparative closeness is strange, but it still stings.
Lynx bids them goodbye and says he's proud of them. Both of them.
Lydia smiles woodenly. She feels like Solana is the only one who has done anything worth praise.
As they drive away, Lynx is the first to turn back towards the house.
He hates watching people leave.
_______________________________________
Etc.: Generation 2 ends.
So, one of Lynx's rolls was AWESOME! and I struggled with what to do there. My initial thought was, since being a gamer is part of his identity, he could make a big arcade... not the little arcade in the house (though that one is still cool, right???), but a proper community lot arcade... and then I realized that if I did that, the family would not have enough funds left over to purchase the really awesome house I want for generation 3. So I came up with other ideas.
Awesome #1: plumbots to replace some of my town's... essential workers!
I made sure they were all high quality plumbots, with limitless learning, solar powered, and efficient chips. It was originally conceived as a sort of father-daughter project, but then I decided Lynx's in-story contributions would just about match his in-game ones instead. He sacrificed a lot of money to make those plumbots happen (though not as much as building an arcade would have cost), and also sacrificed some lifetime happiness points to buy those trait chip bundles, when the game refused to give me all the nanites I needed from the shop, despite buying out the shop over and over hoping it would restock favorably.
Awesome #2: Lynx was a single parent, but his workaholic trait allowed him to grind out money like crazy. Poor guy. The household net worth rose to about 500k, which is necessary for that really awesome house I talked about.
Awesome #3: Lynx got turned into a zombie last chapter...
Generation three's family structure roll is couple + help. This is why I balked when Lynx and Brooke had twins. I had to actually choose between Lydia and Laurel. I picked Lydia early on, despite the game throwing the coward trait curveball at me...
I have never done the Sims University thing before, so Solana, Arne and Lydia are embarking on whole new territory as my test subjects. I rolled Homemade for their generation, but I won't be strictly observing it while they are at university, since it's its own side travel adventure. Sims don't age at university, and time doesn't actually pass in the home town.
I'll see what I can do about slowly transitioning them into that homemade roll while they're at uni, though, since that would make sense. Who doesn't come home from uni with some new habits?
