Rockannie Sims: The Alphabet Alphabetacy -- Chp. 14: Puppy Dogs, Snails, and Mermaid Tails

ah there's really nothing like the love between a girl and her dog

annnnd her hamster ? I'm sure there's another saying for that scenario

as the sole child left in this generation, Dakota spent her time skilling up creativity at her arts and craft table and manifesting all the great art (and simoleans) she'd make

she also spent a fair amount of time playing down at the park with her friends in the The Kool Kids club. Dakota missed having siblings her own age to play with but the park always made her feel less lonely

The gang whiled away the house playing hopscotch

and hopping around in the waterpark

I literally love this replacement lot for Oasis Springs, its so much more fun for the kiddos :D

there were also a couple new family members in the Kool Kids who'd finally aged up into kiddos. We met Brooke already at the last party but now her and Dakota get to bond a little

and the girl with the black braid is Elowen Billings, their only other cousin ! She's Jamal's daughter who was Casper's half-brother (take a look at the family tree if it gets confusing hahahaha)

AHHHHHHHHH that goddang toilet. This is so not supposed to be apart of our beautiful childhood moments montage

crazy how good my sims are at extinguishing each other...~~maybe its all the practice~~

erm, who said that ?

moving on, Dahlia ended up catching Kat's ailment hahhahaha oops, but its the luck-stealer one so I'm kinda into it. I personally haven't gotten super annoyed with ailments yet so I'm planning on keeping them on for now but we'll see lmao

that evening, the howling commandoes went out to hit up the bars and harass the local patronage

Dahlia and Kat were shamelessly flirting the night away. After their little spat the other night, it seemed like everything was back to normal and Dahlia was only too happy to keep it that way

The duo headed out to the bench in the back of the bar together to whisper sweet nothings and other generally icky romantic things

So far, they'd been taking things pretty slow but Dahlia ended up spinning a massive crush on Kat so it was only a matter of time before things got steamy

on the other side of the bar, Damien and Bella had snuck out for a midnight swim together

Bella had been acting strangely all night and now she'd basically forced Damien out for a polar plunge when he just wanted to hang out with their friends. He was starting to feel like something very strange was going on with her

that feeling only doubled when Bella yelled at him to stay on the beach and plunged into the water, a flurry of bubbles surrounding her

when she emerged, Damien almost couldn't believe his eyes. His ~~gillfriend~~ (sorry) girlfriend was a bonafide mermaid

he rushed out into the water towards Bella. And pretty much immediately started freezing to death

they ran back onto shore where Damien wrapped up in some warmer clothing

Bella seemed completely unsure of how Damien was going to react. But the man was thrilled ! After being around ghosts his whole life, a mermaid seemed like the perfect fit for him

Bella was deeply appreciative of his response ;D

Monday rolled around and it was time for Derek's first day of high school !! He spent a serviceable amount of time meeting his classmates and talking over lunch

I was lucky enough to grab probably the first- and last-ever picture of the three teens in class together. Dahlia and Damien are pretty committed to their studies but Derek on the other hand...

he prefers to spend his time out in the school garden, working on his skills. I'd bought a bunch of seasonal seed packs so he was ready to sow and prosper

although he spent a fair amount of time just getting attacked by the bees

*snickers*

luckily, one of his teachers (Hermione Granger hahaha, her spawning into education is just perfect) had a high skill in gardening and she was more than happy to mentor him in the skill

where he also got attacked by bees

at this point, I knew we had to do something about the rabid bees and quick so Derek strapped on his best beekeeping suit and dumped calming powder on the hives

after a couple rounds of this and some bonding, he was able to harvest all kinds of honey and beeswax which went for a pretty simolean

after his success with the bees at school, I ponied up and also got Derek a couple for his garden at home

in other (unsurprising) high school news, Damien and Bella were inseparable as ever and displaying gag-inducing levels of PDA around the halls

yeaaaaaah, they're definitely talked about as 'that couple'

but on a strange but cute note, they'd also taken to swimming and fooling around together at the pool. No one really used it at the high school so it was perfect to let out Bella's mermaid side

God, this just reeks of YA novel

Damien also finished his teen aspiration and gained the iconic trait for hitting 2k followers on social bunny. All his partying and schmoozing had paid off because Damien was also now very popular (or maybe it's the street cred of having a hot girlfriend, who knows)

speaking of teen aspirations, Dahlia had finally gotten up to a B student but lowkey it doesn't matter at all because she still won't be able to fulfill her aspiration (have an A for five days)

I don't understand why their grades barely go up when playing on the high school lot, its so irritatinggggg

although part of the issue might be that Dahlia spent a lot of her time at school socializing. Sadly, Kat had aged up into a young adult so Dahlia was branching out namely with this girl, Lacey Tsukigata

you may remember her as the girl that Derek danced with at prom once upon a time, but she's quickly become Dahlia's best friend

actually maybe a little bit more than friends. I mean can you blame Dahlia, Lacey is a dime and it turns out that Kat is more out of sight, out of mind than predicted

the pair grew closer everyday and Dahlia quickly realized that her feelings were more serious than she'd ever felt for a sim

Love Day rolled around and Dahlia felt like it was the perfect time to put the moves on Lacey

I saw no need to stop the love train in its tracks so Dahlia also asked Lacey to be her girlfriend which she was happy to say yes to

don't they look pleased with themselves ? ☺️

that weekend, the Howling Commandoes set off to the Humor and Highjinks Festival to bond and make some lifelong memories and whatnot

Dahlia drank the prankster juice and I think literally everyone else drank the tea to be a jokester

but they all had a great time joking around and playing into the spirit of the festival

as you know, Kat had aged out of the club but she was replaced with Kaylin Schaeffer who is goofing around with Dahlia above

Hunter also picked the occasion to age-up into a young adult which is SO EXCITING. I literally never get to see spare's families have their bdays eeeeeeeee

hmm, I was not expecting to see a fairy giving a vampire a good slap round the chops but here we are

and to prove how much fun the simmies were having, Damien had to set off on a life-saving jog because he got freaking hysterical and I really really don't want him to die

ahhhhh festival vibes 🎆

Casper had a downright terrible tarot pull when they returned that night...I'm sure that's not a sign for anything bad. Ah well, everyone off to bed !

right, there it is, a burglar has come to rob us

before I could even react, Mr. Pokey II died !!!!!!! This time not from my neglect, I guess they just live super short lives. Anyways, welcome to the family, Mr. Pokey III, you know I had to replace him, Dakota wouldn't be able to take her fav pet dying :(

but back to the burglar who was about to get molly-whopped by the police officer *fingers crossed*

the duo proceeded to have legit one of the most buggy fights that I've ever witnessed in the sims 4 lmao

and then she didn't even arrest him, just made a call back to the precinct and then disappeared off the lot, what the heck ?! Thankfully, the robber also glitched out and fled too so all our stuff was safe

it was at this moment that I'm realizing I haven't appreciated Derek neeeearly enough in this legacy because oh ma gawd

😮‍💨😮‍💨

hmm is it wrong to lust after your own sims creations

although Derek didn't socialize that much during school, he got invited over to Goldie Landgraab's house after school to hang out

she was a nice enough girl except after they had spent some time bantering I spotted the family kiss interaction and realized that they were COUSINS

ew ok, its officially getting really hard to keep track of the extended family. Apparently she's the daughter of one of Harvey's half-siblings so half-cousins ?? not like that makes it any better >.<

also as a random side note, it took me this freaking long to realize that the 'free love' NAP encourages streaking which has literally been driving me CRAZY. I thought it was some random tuning bug with mccc or smth oh my godddd

also ironically, I didn't even have a good picture to show you guys how ridiculous the streaking has gotten because I rage-deleted them all

the twins birthdays were rapidly approaching and so that evening, they headed out with the Howling Commandoes for one last night on the town

it was a pretty usual event for the group, with everyone getting juiced up and dancing. Well, at least attempting to because the bar was a little glitchy to say the least

oh crap Strangerville has been activated. How the heck haven't I seen it before now though considering the first and only time we went to that world was with Clarke and Freya for their prom pregame.....

oh look Harvey and three freshly prepared birthday cakes, I wonder what that could mean ?

shockingly, Harvey rushed off to go congratulate Dakota on aging up all by his lonesome. It's weird, he has a difficult dynamic with pretty much every other kid, but he's always been a fan of Dakota and they have a great relationship. Maybe its the fact that she represents no more kids hahahaha

of course, we threw a big party to celebrate all the birthdays

Dakota got to spend some time monkeying around with her cousins before leaving childhood behind

because she was up first at the birthday candles

she got the generous trait and aspiration of renowned potter which is to reach level 10 of the pottery skill. I think it's pretty fitting since she spent most of her childhood making crafts

here she is all made over as a teen, obviously very artsy and in tune with her energy or whatever. Don't let the sarcasm fool you, I'm actually down bad for Dakota and how cool she is

next up was Dahlia who I got a remarkably better picture of

she got the bookworm trait and the cartomancy aspiration, which is to collect all of the Lady Ravendancer's tarot cards. I'm envisioning that we'll be able to complete that one pretty quick and then move onto the Grim's Little Helper aspiration which is to reach the top of the reaper career

she really doesn't look all that different as an adult, but I had to give her a glamour shot anyways just so you don't forget how stunning she is

you know the drill, Damien was the last up. Which also meant he had the least amount of audience since everyone was too busy stuffing their faces with cake

I guess I didn't get any sparkly pics but he got the perfectionist trait and the 5-star vet aspiration

before hopping into any festivities, Damien pulled Bella away from the party and out to a little outcropping where you could watch the ghost train pass by

I'm interrupting but holy moly Ravenwood is just breathtaking at times

it was a beautiful moment and as the ghost train rumbled silently on by, Damien got down on one knee and prepared to ask Bella a question he'd been thinking about for a while

everyone's favorite couple (well mine at least) are finally engaged and ready to take on the world together

we also went ahead and asked her to move in, mostly because story progression has been a little crazy lately and I get nervous about leaving my spouses at its whims for too long

since she's now been inducted to the household, I also took the liberty of aging Bella up too. Sure, she lost a couple days of teenage-hood but I wanted pics of her at graduation with them !!

so her traits are insider, cheerful, and green enthusiast and her aspiration is to reach the top of the conservationist career. I felt like it was pretty fitting considering the whole mermaid thing

alright with all FOUR of the birthdays over and done with, the party could finally start in earnest

AHHHHHHHH Zayne and Vivian wtf are you doinnnggggggggg 0_o autonomous sims flirting is way out of hand even after all the freaking tuning settings I've changed

yeah its hard to see in this picture (I could've sworn I had a better one) but they're making out in the back corner. Shame !!

at least some of the lovebirds at the party were actually supposed to be flirting with each other

ok...hopefully nothing nefarious went on here (it is Freya's 2ND dead husband after all) but at the tail-end of the party, Zayne seemed to mysteriously laugh himself to death

of course, the entire party decided to parade down the one ladder that leads to the basement which took freaking hours and everyone getting stuck over and over again

oh my god guys this isn't the smoking corner, a sim is DEAD WTF

there were some weird ass errors going on so I ended up having to disband the party and then reset Grimmie to get him back doing his job (ik buddy, I find it hard to come back from vacation too)

well, RIP Zayne, you felt kinda like part of the family. I was always hoping that Cas would pop out a little ginger baby from their adventures :(

as if we needed anymore drama for the night, Dahlia set the grill on fire while cooking a late night snack

ok ok it's fine, I'm gonna go take some deep breaths

that weekend, it was high school graduation so the entire family treked down to the event center. Dahlia and Damien got busy ravaging the fancy snack bars

our amazing high school grads ❤️

Damien and Dahlia got their diplomas

weirdly, Bella didn't change into her cap and gown but she did still get a diploma so idk what was going on there lmao

PS from the future, she ended up getting another ceremony like two weeks later when they were all in uni already HAH, gotta love sims bugs =)

anyways, the next afternoon all of our newly young adult-aged sims applied their hearts out to university and all the scholarships they could muster

I know you're probably all expecting an announcement about whose heir and sadly I won't be able to lead you on for long because the banner will be on the next chapter. BUT I love Damien and Dahlia too much to let either go for a bit so we are going to uni !!

to celebrate sending off their applications, all of our new young adults headed off to the tattoo parlor

Damien took the opportunity to rummage through their mail HAHA. Dude you gotta knock it off, all the snooping is gonna get your ass beat at university

Dahlia went first and got some hauntingly beautiful designs down her arm (although you'll have to wait to spot them)

Damien and Bella went next, although Damien was being a real baby about it

you can't totally see all of them but Damien got this sweet puppy dog on the back of his arm and Bella was covered in jellyfish and other deep-sea designs

for the next couple days, the household was full of chillaxing sims and a lot less taxing for me to manage

I also just downloaded Adventure Awaits and several simmies were prompted to choose a formative moment: Dahlia picked up morbidly curious and Damien got pet friend

shortly thereafter, Damien also rolled the cheerful trait so it was just a day of self-discovery for the guy

since we were just waiting around, Dahlia set off collecting tarot cards for her deck

*stunningly gorgeous photo interlude of Whispering Glen*

she began by consulting with the ginormous magical head carving about her quest

and then explored a crypt where she found the swords tarot card and got a nice shiny crystal

as she exited the tomb, Dahlia heard strange drumbeats coming from the beach she'd explored earlier. She ran back across the neighborhood stumbling into the moon revelry festival

she got to chatting with another sim in the Order of Lenore and took on another quest

I stg 🤦‍♀️ I keep forgetting to delete this stupid ass toilet

thank goodness the whole family responded to the fire. Whatever would we have done if just one sim came up and didn't glitch out and actually put out the fire in a reasonable amount of time

oh, I turn my back for one minute after I thought the fire was put out and somehow Derek and Cas have now managed to set themselves on fire too, great !!