The Bloomer Legacy: Behind the Scenes Special

I fell in love with Ruby and her quirkiness ever since Kirk first met her, and I was rooting for her to become the generation 1 spouse. That’s why Kirk and Ruby’s friendship started and why I had him meet up with her several times hoping for a romantic spark. However, sims have a mind of their own and I’m all about letting them choose their own path, so when Kirk fell for Maranda, I knew that him ending up with anyone else would have been wrong.

I still enjoyed having Ruby over as a family friend – when I moved Maranda in I found out she was friends with Ruby too, and was considering having a bit of a side story for Ruby and Howard Bloom. Of course, that all went to plum when Ruby died at the weenie roast event – this was in no way planned or wanted on my part.

I felt so guilty about Ruby’s accidental death that I decided that Kirk and Maranda’s child was going to fall in love with her ghost and resurrect her practically immediately. Isaac becoming mean as a part of the process was not a part of the master plan – that’s all the random trait generator’s fault. However, it did end up making sense for the story and added a whole new dimension I hadn’t planned.

As for Ruby’s son Allen, I was vaguely aware of her being a single mom since when Kirk asked about her profession, she said she was a stay at home mom (has this always been a thing or was that added by an update?) and I did notice she had a child living with her when I popped her into a random house in Willow Creek, much like other familiar townie faces to prevent Kirk losing his friends to the dreaded culling.

Had Kirk gotten together with Ruby I would have enjoyed there already being a son from a previous relationship, and I felt like Kirk would have been a great replacement father figure for the young boy. However, as Kirk and Ruby only kept their relationship on a friendship level, I never felt the need to try too hard to meet him.

When Ruby died I assumed that her child would have been taken by a social worker since they were living on their own, which is why I hadn’t mentioned the fact Ruby had a son earlier. When I discovered that Allen was in fact still in the game, I knew instantly this was a reunion opportunity and that’s when I chose to introduce him in the story. Him becoming a detective like Isaac was a happy coincidence.

Finally on the subject of Ruby: In terms of the ambrosia, I had never tried making this dish in The Sims 4 before since it seemed like quite a challenge. However, with this family it almost happened effortlessly. Kirk’s completed Freelance Botanist aspiration was practically a freebie when it came to obtaining the death flower, and I felt like the Angling Ace aspiration was a natural second choice for an outdoorsy sim like Kirk. Maranda already had reasonable cooking skill from being in the culinary career in spite of evetually choosing the mixology path, since she did a bit of both in the earlier stages. So ultimately it was just the case of getting her gourmet cooking skill up. As Isaac said, it did seem as if the Bloomers had been destined to bring Ruby back to life.

On darker matters, Kirk and Maranda’s simultanious death did really happen the way it was described in the last chapter. I’ve never had two sims die of old age at the same time so it was a surprise to me, but it was quite romantic in a way. While it must have been hard on Isaac and Ruby, we avoided the heartbreaking time when the widowed sim is devastated and mourning for their spouse, and Kirk and Maranda got to leave together.

I did adore my founder couple and luckily I managed to upload them, Isaac and the revived Ruby on to the gallery before they passed away, so if you want them in your game, you can download them here. Make sure to have them drink the Potion of Youth ASAP though – they died on the very same day I saved them in my library. Let me know if you end up placing the family in your game, I would be delighted to see Kirk and Maranda live on.