Pennington1 Round 1 - Which Witch?

We last saw Arlina Pennington and her two younger children in Pennington - Introduction and Backstory. Her oldest son, Brandon, has since gone through University. You can read that story here. Of the two teenagers still at home, Arlina had recently turned Blake into a neutral warlock, and Bethany had just transitioned to teenager. Life on this lot had pretty much settled into a fairly predictable routine. Let's see what they're up to now.

Arlina has started following her passion for Tinkering by learning how to build robots. While it can be a bit of an expensive hobby given their limited budget, the money they get back from selling them after she makes them (either from the table or from inventory) nets them a decent additional income.

Blake continues to work on painting. The masterpieces he sells form a large portion of the family's income.

Bethany paints, but she also has a passion for video games. Here she is playing The Sims 3.

A brief aside here to show you the picture of Alfred's ghost that Arlina painted awhile ago. Not sure how well this picture shows it, but in game it turned out pretty well.

One of the first things I decided to do with this family was to get Bethany turned into a witch now that she's a teenager. So, in order to get some nice pictures of it, I drug Bethany away from her video game so she'd be standing up, then had Arlina start to cast the spell...

But her spell fizzled. And in the time it took me to figure out why Bethany wasn't changing, she'd gotten bored and gone back to her video game. So I had Arlina try again, though I didn't bother making Bethany stand up this time just in case it failed once more.

It worked this time, however, and once the spell had landed, Be thany stood up and changed. Arlina watched from her seat on the couch.

And this is where I realized just how much Bethany looks like her mother. With both of them in the neutral witch outfit, they were kind of hard to tell apart, though Bethany's skintone is a bit darker than Arlina's. I had Bethany start working on studying the ways of the light though so she could get up to Good Witch status and make it easier to tell the two apart.

Meanwhile, Blake's painting eventually maxed his Arts & Crafts enthusiasm and he got his plaque for that.

And then I had him start to work on becoming a Good Warlock.

Since there wasn't room in the house for everyone to have their own podium and cauldrons out, the kids had to share Arlina's to begin with.

Winter had arrived, and since the compost bin was full, Arlina decided to skip raking the last of the leaves and just make them disappear.

Blake's studies paid off first, and he was the first to reach Good alignment. I was kind of disappointed that there isn't really animation for this transition...their clothes will just suddenly change while they're studying.

Since Blake's teen days were rapidly coming to an end, I decided I should start getting him aquainted with the people in the Greek House on campus so it would be easier to get him in there once he goes. So I had him call up Brandon and invite the household over. Everyone had a good visit that night. Blake chatted up his future sister-in-law Allison and became friends with her...

Bethany got to know Ann Chovie

Arlina hung out in the front yard with Skip and Viola

And Brandon ended up having to amuse himself on the computer

Later that night, or maybe it was the next day, Bethany's studies paid off and she joined the ranks of Good Witches.

Now that Blake and Bethany were both Good, I realized they would need to have their own podium and cauldron now. Luckily they had enough money for a small addition on the second floor so I could build a Good Magic Room on top of the Neutral Magic Room downstairs. Currently it opens off of Bethany's bedroom, so she was the first to put it to use.

Arlina continued to have a passion for Nature, rolling wants to hunt bugs, birdwatch and go hiking every morning when she woke up. I decided to indulge her with the bug hunting in hopes of being able to fill her bug box eventually. Here she is showing her dedication to the task by hunting bugs while it's snowing.

I'm generally pretty bad about remembering to let my teenagers date or have much of a social life, but since Blake's LTW is to have 50 dream dates I figured I would get started on it. He brought a female friend home from school one day, and I had him ask her on a date. I forget who she is, though I think it's Sophie, the default townie teen.

The date progressed well, and Blake got his first kiss from her.

And eventually it ended as a dream date for him. 1 down, 49 to go.

Meanwhile, Arlina had been blogging about Nature on the computer, and finally maxed her Nature enthusiasm and the gal in the plant outfit came and gave her a plaque for it.

Bethany rolled the want to Go Out that night, so I let her. She and Arlina have a good relationship, so Arlina readily agreed.

Arlina was now only a day or so away from becoming an elder. She's permaplat from fulfilling her LTW (though I think I'd had her get lifelong happiness from the Genie prior to that), and had a bottle of Elixir by her bed, so I sent her upstairs to take a few swigs of it.

Being a witch doesn't mean these teenagers don't have to do their homework

I hadn't tried out the spectral pets yet, so I had Arlina summon one. He's kind of hard to take pictures of sometimes since he's semi-transparents and sparkly, but meet Argyle, Arlina's Familiar.

Arlina and Argyle quickly became friends, but I also had her spend some time painting so she could get her Arts & Crafts plaque. Despite all the time she'd spent painting in the past, she'd never quite maxed her enthusiam in that hobby to get it, but finally she did.

Bethany took to Argyle quite well also, and would play with him when she had time to.

Argyle made himself at home. I decided not to discourage him from being on the furniture and let him have full run of the house.

With Nature and Arts plaques under her belt, I decided it was time to have Arlina focus more on her True Hobby of Tinkering, so set her to working at the robot station more. After a dozen toy robots or so she got her bronze badge.

Her robot making also earned her a membership to the Tinkering secret lot. Halfway there to a plaque in it.

Blake and Bethany had a snow day one day, and I sent them to the Good Witch's lot to work on their magic skills. They worked on making reagents to have on hand, and hung out with Daisy Siew the NPC Good Witch to build up their relationship with her more.

When they got back home, Bethany made a snowman.

Then it was time to get down to work on other skills. Bethany worked on her logic skills playing chess, and got a membership to the Games lot in the process.

Blake worked on getting the last few points of Body skill he needed to get a scholarship for it, and earned a membership to the Fitness lot.

By Thursday, it was time for Blake to collect his scholarships and head off to college before he transitioned to Adult and lost the chance to go. All his studying paid off in the form of several scholarships.

Arlina and Bethany waved goodbye to him as he called the cab to take him off to campus.

Later that evening Arlina got her silver badge in robotics.

And with that, it was time to leave this lot. They are running on a Friday-Friday schedule for rounds, and Arlina's badge was the last thing of any note that happened on Thursday night. Bethany still has about 5 days before she'll become an adult, so will likely have to leave for college in the middle of the week next time I play them. I loaded University long enough to move Blake into the dorm so he'd still be callable, but will save the few pictures I took of his arrival there for whenever I do the next University update. I'm not sure yet which of the other teenagers in the neighborhood will be joining him there.

Here's a final look at the lot as it was when I left it.

Stay tuned in a few weeks' time for the next update, which should feature Sonny Day.