Goo-goo g'joog: Brand

While I know my father would never have approved, I was glad that I had howled at Time. Mother left us, her fragile human body worn out, and would never have achieved our goal of media control without my intervention.

When last we left, Taylor had just lifted Journalism. It is Week 9, Day 4; Bleys is a Band Manager, Brand is a Report Processor; Deirdre is a Desk Jockey; Fiona is a Paramedic.

The changing breed are an instinctual species. Historically we have relied on our gut feelings, our emotions - in some cases, our rage. This is the way of my father, and his father before him.

It is not my way. Snarling was not the way to build a business empire. But it was difficult - always the rage is close to the surface. I took up the game of chess, and sought challengers from around the town. It was rare that these challenges were accepted - there is little time to spare for organising such competitions, and it required me to use my precious telephone bandwidth to participate - but I did gradually learn to use my rational side over the emotional side. I think it helped.

Just as well I turned off aging. Of course with werewolves a sudden plunge of mood like this often forces the change, but it can't be helped.

Progress is slow. With no Ambitious Sims, and with several that have terrible traits, I am not anticipating clearing most of these restrictions before adulthood, but that needn't be a problem since I have a male heir and Forensics is lifted. Every Monday and Thursday when Brand should have been war dialling he instead brought over the next chess challenger to play chess in the snow. Progress there was slow too, but steady - it was generally only possible to play once on Monday and once on Thursday, but occasionally the game finished before 1900 in time to be allowed to invite over the next player.

On the full moon, Deirdre howled a new song - the Howl of Perfection. She had honed her body into a weapon no less sharp than her mind, and the criminals of the world - already on the run from father's efforts - began to try and hunt us. They could not strike directly, but the punishing "protection fees" we had been paying seemed to increase, never with any explanation.

Somehow, she got her last point of Logic while writing a Fiction novel. I have no clue how that happened. She was close, anyway, but you're not supposed to get Logic from writing. I guess not all glitches are bad!

Though denied the change, Bleys was in many ways more in touch with our heritage than I. Taking his inability to howl as a challenge rather than a disability, he learned to mimic the sound of the great tribe with stringed instruments. Of course, many such instruments were needed, so he formed a symphony, and then convinced the distributors of the military emergency films to use his music as their soundtrack. The result was that the Barking Challenge was played all over to a wide audience, in many places, and it awoke some powerful spirits. We have the key to bring back spring, as soon as we need to. And to think that Dad dismissed Bleys as virtually useless.

Indeed, Bleys' popularity was a key that opened many doors - just, unfortunately, none that let him get the change.

It's funny that the Sim with the shortest lifespan got the quickest lift. He did age to adult just before managing this (Brand still has 9 more days), but he had plenty of time. Symphonic lifted.

I am now in the curious position of being able to lock wishes, but not really have anything to spend the LTR points on. (I'm not exactly enthused about Acclaimed Author or Bookshop Bargainer). Anyway, now to work on his Super Popular LTW, and get him to Athletics 10. No point in spring yet though; I want a good source of Fun first.

On Week 12, Day 2, the other lifts come (along with Bleys' 20th friend; he got to 10 Athletics as well):

In time, Deirdre took over the spy network. These files were invaluable to us - my children, for example, would not have existed without her efforts.

Fiona not only restored the state of medical science but also found a way to culture bacteria from our own highly resistant stomach flora; spreading this through the water supply had a cleansing effect that was the key to restoring municipal supplies. Water was now safe to drink, if you didn't care that it had werewolf stomach cells in it - and since nobody knew that, nobody cared.

I became the font through which all business passed. While still required to pay the mob their protection fees, I had any number of ways to conceal assets in temporary holdings - they'd never get more than a pittance from us from now on. But I was getting older, and it was time to start thinking about a family.

Business, Espionage, and Medical lifted. Normally I'd kill Deidre now (she's already made the LTW), but she's Unlucky, so - good luck with that. Ugh. However, Bleys is not, so he's for the chop. (Fiona hasn't quite made her LTW yet).

Brand became an adult on the same day. So all in all, a pretty important day.

I had located a teenage girl to serve as spouse. As it turned out the day after Brand became an adult, she was a young adult - already with a partner, of course (NRAAS Story Progression doesn't mess around). But I was already her best friend, so it didn't take much.

Barely out of her teens, and with a committed boyfriend, Chrystal was no match for my animal magnetism.

Chrystal was a gold mine of books - 6 unique books in her inventory, and a car (which unfortunately I have no space for). She is Absent Minded, Computer Whiz, Excitable, Friendly, and Insane - so she'll fit right in here - and has Cooking 5 and Logic 3. She is currently level 1 in Science, but she will not be able to return to that since she quit it on becoming pregnant:

My enhanced fertility (thanks to a special treatment Deirdre worked out) ensured that Chrystal fell pregnant almost immediately after we got married. I was nervous and excited at the prospect of becoming a father - we'd already come so far, but there was so much more to do, and it was going to be up to my kids to do it.

Next generation incoming. I need to kill off Bleys, but I might as well wait until it is time to get rid of Deidre as well, since that minimises the mourning period.