Truce?

So my little divas were walking to school...together.  Considering that just a few days ago they were about to kill each other, this is a vast improvement. 
I hope they're slowly figuring out they are much better together than they ever will be apart. 

Then, they ate fried fish together at the table.  "So," Kaydence began, "how was Grease rehearsals?" (Kady wasn't here when Skylar won the role of one of the 'Pink Ladies' in the drama club musical.  She wanted Sandy but that role went to one of Malcolm Landgraab's daughters - you know, politics and all)

"Okay," Sky shrugged. 

Kady cornered Skylar.  "Listen - this - this whole thing is nonsense."

"I know that you positively hate me, Skylar, but it just makes no sense.  We have the exact same hair color, that comes from Grandma Plumb, and we basically come from the exact same people.  We're family and we're going to be family after my dad and your mom are gone."

I could tell that Kady's words had gotten to Skylar a little bit.  With Kady being the old soul that she is, it's hard to believe sometimes that she's actually two simdays younger than Skylar. 

If they're not going to be buddies at least they could at least be civil to each other.

"So, how about we rehearse Betty Rizzo's song?  I saw this one Betty in Starlight Shores and she was a badass..."

One thing I can say Kady DID inherit from Bassy.  My baby brother was the world's biggest pest.  He would pester you until you did what he wanted. 

Big Sister Club

I've accepted the fact that Kaydence is my responsibility now and she's here for the long haul. 
Andy hasn't said much about it, but he does support my decision not to allow her to go back with Bassy. 

Such an incredible little girl she is - scary temper and all.

I didn't birth her - that witch Madison did - but she's mine.  I've got her now and I'm not letting her go.

My brother forgets, I am the cause he even got custody in the first place after he and Madison split up.  I dragged him and Madison to court, along with her mom, and filed the paperwork.  And what does he do with it?  Six years and Kady has to be his mom.

I found out that for the last four years, they've been living off of Kady's savings.  Her college fund is almost completely dried up. 

Oh, and one more thing.

Kady is about to become a big sister.

That's because Bassy's new wife, Cherise, is now pregnant.

Seriously, Bassy? After you hash up your daughter, and have nothing to do with your son, you get to do the same thing to another kid. I hope Cherise is a better mother than Madison, or this poor child is in sorry shape.

At least Kyra did (as far as I'm aware) step up to the plate for Aaron, which is more than I can say for you. You didn't even acknowledge his existence until we ran it in the ground and made you take a DNA test.

We learned of Cherise's pregnancy via a special announcement he sent to Kady's phone.

He's got a child with Kyra Foster, a kid with Madison Westley, now another child coming with Cherise. 

Oh, and one more thing, Bassy. I love you to death, but you are not getting Kady back.
I'll allow her to visit her new sibling and to get to know Cherise, but as far as getting custody back, that's not happening. 
She's mine now. 

The Family Secret

"Learning that I could physically visit the places that I read about, inhabit the worlds of the characters in my books, anytime I pleased, instead of just imagining them in my head, was a powerful discovery."

Those aren't my words, they're those of my thirteen-year-old niece, Kaydence, in her diary after her trip to Oasis Landing.   As book-crazy as she is, you could imagine finding out the family secret was quite the revelation for her.  But she doesn't know the whole of it.  

She doesn't know the whole story of our relationship with the supernatural.

She doesn't know about my mom being an ambrosial or about my dad's encounter with the Reaper itself when he was a very young man.  

I have told her about my forays into the cemetery when I was a child, and that my friends back then were practically all ghosts.

We've closely guarded our secret, though.  No one except for us really knows it.  Bassy, when he learned it in Bridgeport, got so afraid of it, he tried to duck from it.  So he distanced himself from it - and, in a way, us.  He forgot who he was, and instead chose to try to reinvent himself.

Had Bassy not try to dodge the truth, he would be much better off now.  

Neil, my nephew and the son of my older half-brother Noah, was actually the first to deal with the family secret.  It drove him crazy, quite literally. 

AJ learned it in Moonlight Falls.  He's not entirely comfortable with it, like Andy, but he deals with it.  

Neither, to be honest, is Sage, but she deals with it.  I do think the ambrosial part intrigues her, as it involves cooking, fishing, and gardening, things she loves.

Sierra loves it, though, and has fully and completely embraced it.  When she found out she went full-stop, studying alchemy for a brief while (I think she still does) and hanging out at Aleister's the supernatural shop in Moonlight Falls. 

Then there's that story about her being abducted by aliens and being whisked away to a place a hundred years in the future called Oasis Landing -

- a story Kaydence has all but confirmed by visiting Oasis Landing herself.

Sierra even tried to resurrect someone at college, who'd died after a lightning strike.  When I heard she'd tried that, it sent chills through every pixel I have.

And apparently, it wasn't the first time.  She'd tried once before, in her teens.

No word yet on the younger two kids, although when Skylar was little she traveled with Sage and Sierra around Moonlight Falls. 

A part of me thinks Kaydence knew something, though.  If she didn't know the whole story on those starry nights in Starlight Shores when she wandered off, she knew something was different. 

I don't know how completely Kaydence will embrace the family secret.  She doesn't seem to be running away from it, though, like her dad did.

She's a sponge, soaking up everything, her eyes big as saucers when she sees something interesting.  She has a vivid imagination and her curiosity is insatiable.  I think that's why she reads so much. 

And she pretty much has spent most of her life watching people.  I have to think that she had to get a little kick out of watching her dad carry on like he does. 

Like Father, Like Daughter

The more I look at Kady, the more she's starting to remind me of someone I knew very, very well.  Her father, my baby brother, Sebastian Ryan "Bassy" Plumb.  

The pre-Bridgeport Bassy.

Bassy wasn't just the life of the party, Bassy WAS the party. 

Everything I did, Bassy did just a little bit better.  A little bit faster.  People flocked to him.  Making friends was a piece of cake for him.  And on top of all that, Bassy was smart as a whip.

For his valedictorian speech at CSG, he spent six minutes cracking jokes.  People here still talk about it.  That's how memorable that speech was.  No one remembers graduation speeches. 
Bassy managed to make smart look cool.   I see that same quality in Kady. 

Bassy became a star because he's extremely handsome and has more talent in his pinkie than I have in my whole body.  It's like my parents put all their best genes together to make him.  It's always been a sore point with me.  I had to work twice as hard to get where I am.

In short, Bassy became a star because he's Bassy.  

But, I love him to death.  I've always been responsible for him, since the day he was born.  Even when he was Simland's biggest movie star.  

Unfortunately, the same qualities that made my brother a star caused his downfall. 

I had a letter I had written to Bassy a while ago.  I never sent it, I kept it in my desk drawer.  

I know who you are, Bassy, because I raised you.  Hell, I even gave you that name.  You are way better than what you have been, to yourself, and certainly to your daughter.  You didn't go to Bridgeport, Bassy, and all of a sudden get corrupted and become this person who lies to people.  That's not you, Bassy.  And yet that's who you've become. 
When you were little, Bassy, you took a friendless little girl and played with her, and grew up with her, and might have even loved her.  You also took a scared little boy and befriended him, too.  I envied you because socializing was so easy for you.  You made friends like it was nothing.  You couldn't even see a bug on the ground without wanting to pick it up and hold it.  That was you, Bassy.  People loved you.  People loved you because you were genuine.  People loved you because you were real.
And that was the quality you brought to the theaters, too.  The fresh-faced boy-next-door.  Then, suddenly, it all went south.  It all blew up.  The whole thing with Kyra and Daisy.  Then the whole sordid affair with Madison right after that.  The best thing that came from Madison, of course, is Kaydence, and what you and Madison did to her borders on criminal.  Who are you, Bassy?  You don't even know anymore.  The sad part is, I don't either.

Love, your big sis

Kady came here from Starlight Shores with her dad. That's her actually walking inside the school building.  Seriously, who finds joy walking inside the school building?
Kady does, that's who. 

My youngest daughter, Skylar, hates her with everything she has.  And she still hasn't exactly told me why, but I think I know.

Because the same thing is happening all over again.

Whatever Skylar does, Kady does just a little bit better.  I believe Skylar is bright, but Kady is on another level.

Bassy himself acknowledged Kady's high intelligence in his last conversation with me.  What he fails to realize is, Kady inherited it - from him.  

That wide-eyed wonder, that insatiable curiosity, that pure unadulterated joie de vivre, Bassy had that, once upon a time.  I want to make sure Kaydence doesn't lose it the way her father did. 

My brother did come back to Sunset Valley after all. 

Oasis Landing

When my daughter and my niece get together, they speak a different language.  It's certainly not Simlish.

On the surface, they have little in common.  Sierra hates makeup and dresses, Kady likes both.  In fact, Kady wears more makeup than I wear in a year.  I've actually never seen Kady without makeup, even when she sleeps.  She is a pop star's daughter, after all.  Sierra could care less for clothes, and Kady is something of a fashion maven.

Kady grew up in Starlight Shores, where all the performers and movie stars are.  Sierra spent most of her childhood and adolescence in Hidden Springs.

Sierra likes all manner of sports, and Kady seems allergic to them.

Sometimes I wonder if Sierra thinks Kady is just her annoying little cousin who follows her everywhere. 

So... what on earth could these two actually have in common?

I have two words for you... Oasis Landing.

 

There's normal bookworms, and then there's Kaydence.  This girl is addicted to the written word.  She's bought so many books from the store already that they gave her a lifetime discount card.

Absolutely no subject is too esoteric, too off limits, for her. Including, apparently, books on time travel.  There is nothing she won't read about. 

"Guess what?" Kady boasted to Sierra after Sierra came back from one of her team's practices.  "I read that book on time travel, and I did what you told me.  I opened the book, and pressed the button on the almanac.  It took me to the portal -"

"I told you it would work.  It's got to.  No one believes me, they think I'm crazy.  So, tell me, what did you see?"

"So I stepped to the portal and went inside..."

"Oh, my gosh, it was incredible!  Just like you said!  Everything was so clean and neat and perfect."

 "The first thing I wanted to check out was who had become the pioneer of plumbotics.  Then I saw Grandpa's statue... got goosebumps!"

 
"Then I took an advanced tech class and saw a show at the planetarium... I wish there was a planetarium here in Sunset Valley, I think I'd be there every night."

"I also took a course in bot building, I know you'd like that, eventually I'll be able to make my own."

"The next morning when I woke up, you know the blue-haired time traveler scientist guy, Relevart, right?"
"Yeah?"
"He came and sat next to me while I ate.  Recited my full name.  Told me my whole family history - where I was born, who my parents are, pretty much everything about me."
"Did that to me too," Sierra confirmed, "told me everything."

 
"You're the author, director, and screenwriter, Kaydence Westley-Plumb," he continued.
"I'm not an author," I laughed, "I'm still in high school -"
"Ah, but you will be, yet.  I've already read your memoir -"
"What memoir?"
"The one you started writing.  About your childhood in Starlight Shores as the daughter of an actor and a pop star."
"But I'm barely through the first chapter!"
"I've already read the last paragraph, Kaydence."  Emit gave a sly wink through his glasses.  "Of course, I already know what's in the memoir before you even write it."

"I even know that your mother tried to stop it from getting published.  She said it was all lies."
"So let me get this straight. I'm going to finish my book and my mom is going to try to stop it from getting published?"
Emit nodded.  "You know, there is a way you can publish it so that your mother doesn't know it's you.  Change all the names and details in it."
"So you're warning me beforehand?"
"I guess you could say that."
"But I'm telling the truth.  That stuff really did happen to me."
"I know it did, Kaydence."
"I don't want it to happen to anyone else."

"After breakfast I went to the bot place to try my hand at making trait chips.  I had taken the course the day before, so I hoped I had gotten it right."

"After making a trait chip I decided to look at the bots in the shop.  There was this one that caught my eye, it had 6 trait slots and was a cleaner and a cook.  Then I thought about it... why not?"

"So I bought it."
Sierra stopped her.  "Way to go, Kady!  So... does Uncle Bassy know?"
"Nope, he doesn't have a clue."

Years ago, when my brother was confronted with the truth about us Plumbs in Bridgeport, he ran from it.   He couldn't handle it.  He tried to reinvent himself, make himself into something, someone, he wasn't.  And he has suffered for it. 

I don't think any of the women in his life really knew him, because all this time, he has been acting.  He has been playing a role.  A measure of how good an actor he is, is how well people believed the role he played.  People bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

You can't run from the truth.  Eventually, it will catch up to you.

Now his daughter Kady, when confronted with the truth, has embraced it.  

I think growing up in Starlight Shores she kind of knew somehow that she was different.  What she didn't know was why. 

That day when the Grim Reaper bestowed his blessing upon my dad and his musical career, it has extended to his children and grandchildren. 

Welcome to being a Plumb, Kaydence.  Just a day in the life.