English Legacy: Collapse Into Now (Chapter 36)

In a place long past, there was a house, with an attic of sorts. This attic was perfect for storing... "things".... things you wanted to hold on to... even though you might go a year or longer without touching them. You knew, with a little care, that they would still be there, even if the "Attic", somehow got moved to a totally different "house".

But the "attic" is more than just an empty room. It is a place outside the reach of lesser forces, and it keeps its contents safe. Even if these contents consist of people, places, and things... capable of being held in stasis for extended periods.

These people would remain in stasis, exactly as they were, obvious to the passage of Time.
When the stasis is resolved, changes are free to take place again.
... and sometimes the changes reveal that the universe has a strange sense of humor.

Oh.... the whole "attic" analogy really isn't working out the way I wanted it to. I'm out of practice...

Yes, readers, it may have been a darned long while, but I, the Creator, am back. First thing you'll notice (besides Cassandra's looks) is that the shots are (or should be) in widescreen now. I'm running on a PC that's rather more powerful than the one I was using all those months ago.

How powerful, you may ask? Let me put it this way, Sims 3 is running at 1920x1080 with all the video options pretty much set as high as they will go, and I have to force vertical sync or Sims 3 will run at 160 fps or more. :) I <3 this computer. :) The increased graphics fidelity was NOT kind to poor Cassandra.

I just installed World Adventures, Ambitions, and Late night the other day, as well as the associated patches. I'm a bit surprised there was no fiery explosion visible from space.

Needless the say, there have been a few changes to the Legacy house with three new expansion packs added, though somethings stay the same. For instance:
Brendan and Elizabeth are still very happy with each other, as well as the new hot tub. Elizabeth is only two logic points from reaching her LTW of Renaissance Sim (Three skills maxed) Brendan got his LTW of Swimming in Cash a long time ago.
Deanna is still writing Romance Novels, though she has used the new feature of being Self-Employed - her last novel, "Hot Blooded Heat" (how original...) granted her two Self-Employment levels just from the first royalty check. The next Sunday, which is when she'll get royalty payments from the books she's already written, should boost her up even higher. She's only got less than two Painting points before she reaches her LTW of Illustrious Author.

In other news, there have been some other age transitions besides Cassandra's, and let's just say they were somewhat more kind to Andrew, Jessica, and Kevin.
Kevin, who is lined up to be the next Heir, looks so much like his grandfather Alex it is not even funny. Here he is playing chess with his aunt Elizabeth. He's working on the Athlete track like his uncle Brendan.
Here's Andrew, Elizabeth and Brendan's second child, finally transitioning to childhood. After what happened with his big sister, I was a tiny bit nervous as to whether his jaw would explode like Cassandra's...
Thankfully, it did not. Andrew's looking pretty fortunate so far. Like all other English children, he got the family trait of Computer Whiz when he transitioned.

Last, but not least in the transition department, is his cousin Jessica. Who gave me another moment of worry. Well, more than a few.
I don't know what was up with her as a toddler on this new PC, but after the expansion packs were added and patched, she was always cross-eyed, no matter what. If her eyes were open, they were crossed. It was not pretty.
Thankfully, the transition was kind to her as well... though that hairstyle is not the one she "came with"; it's one of the new ones. I love it... I add three EPs and the number of hair choices for girls (without caps) went from six choices, to a whopping nine of something. I don't feel like waking her up now just to send her to the mirror to find out how many.

It's a bit weird... she and her cousin Andrew are Best Friends. The two of them have a higher relationship than either of them do with their own parents (though Liz is her son's Best Friend).
So, here we have seventy-five percent of an English family dinner, in Widescreen! Enjoy it while it lasts... for there is a hard choice that will need to, or at least should be, made soon. I've been putting it off for years, almost literally.


And now for something completely different. A completely-unrelated screenshot of a young woman punching a stick.
..and with that, we're back. :)