The Ryman LegacyInterlude 2

By Mzyra

InFamous

Once upon a time there was a young man called Seth Jayapalan. He was the second of five children and eldest son. He was fairly charming from the start, but nobody ever really considered him an angel - after all, boys would be boys.

In fact, the term ‘bully’ could be pretty readily applied to him by the time he was a teenager and he felt no hesitancy picking on the weaker boys he went to school or hung out with. Though he did still manage to be popular nonetheless.

However, Seth did have his limits on his bullying – he wouldn’t pick on girls and he wouldn’t cause serious injury. It was just fun. Guys would be guys and had to show off to remain leaders of the pack. Nobody really got hurt and everyone thought he was cool and/or feared him. That’s what he wanted most – fun and celebrity.

And so when, at university, he discovered the existence of real magic… well, the potential for fun was enormous and he just had to get in on the action and quickly did so, choosing the dark side over the light. Think of the pranks he could pull! And the dark side had a higher propensity to cookies than the light.

And so soon the campus was awash with mysteriously chicken-like creepy lecturers and people suddenly getting fat for no reason. Most people didn’t know or understand why, but it was great fun for Seth and the few close friends that he told.

He wasn’t bothered when his cousin became a light witch – after all, a little friendly rivalry never hurt anyone, it just upped the stakes when they played games or had pillow fights. He and Tiana may have ribbed each other a bit over it, but it was all in good fun.

And most of his life was relatively normal. He met his soul mate at university, like many others, and they were engaged before he graduated, determined to spend forever together and start a family after college.

But normal sometimes got boring. There was only so much you could do to students and lecturers and Seth hadn’t even fully tested his powers yet, so one bright, sunny day he headed downtown to see what mischief he could make.

It was that day that he accidentally broke the fourth wall.

He started out in a park, finally getting a chance to try the hardest spell he’d learnt – freezing time. He hoped it would work…

Of course it did. All across town people were suddenly frozen in whatever stances they had been in – some realised and panicked, but they had no chance to escape.

To his main delight Mrs Crumplebottom had been very nearby and he took the chance to make fun of her without risking a concussion from her handbag.

But, fun as that was, it didn’t last for long. He considered moving people around and putting them in awkward positions, but decided against it. It just wasn’t as much fun as he hoped it would be…

Time still frozen, he wondered off to see whether anyone had been caught in compromising positions or something interesting elsewhere…

For numerous blocks each person and building was as boring as the one before it, but then Seth saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Inside one of the buildings the people weren’t frozen! Looking around the streets though, everyone else was… Was this a coven of witches and warlocks? Did they have magic-proof glass?

Looking at the building, he wouldn’t have been particularly surprised either way – it was probably the craziest building he’d ever seen; it had a giant ninja fighting a giant pink gorilla on the roof. But he hadn’t seen it before, despite the number of times he’d been downtown. Was it new?

Whatever it was, he demanded an answer as to why these people were immune to his magic, so he marched right in.

Inside the building things were probably even crazier – he’d just seen the roof, it was hard to miss, but from the inside it was like there was no roof! And whoever had done the decoration must have been blind and/or stupid. Mind you, most of the inhabitants seemed to be on bubbles and/or juice, so perhaps they had done the decorating, it fit the theme enough.

As Seth stared on, one of the inhabitants (mostly women) spotted him. “Oh my god! It’s- it’s- What’s-his-face!”

The others just looked around, confused, but the first woman ran over to him. Seth wondered whether he should leave before the craziness got him too…

He cleared his throat as the woman came over “Er, hi, I’m S-”

“Sam, right? Wait, no… Seth?”

“Yeeeah… How do you know that?”

“You’re related to the Rymans, aren’t you?”

“…Yeah, my mother was a Ryman and I’ve got a few cousins and an aunt and uncle-”

“Yeah, Nicola and Birch and that lot! And you were that jerk who beat up that teenage male version of me in the chapter before Tom killed his parents!”

Seth recognised a few names and words in those exclamations, but was very confused. “Er, what? You know my relatives?”

“Of course we do,” said one of the people on the bubble blower. “That’s why we’re here!”

“Yeah,” said another “we’re all readers of the legacy you’re in!”

“Should we be telling him this?” One of them asked.

“Meh, if Jess didn’t want him here he wouldn’t be here, would he?”

“Guess not. Though I thought she gave us all this stuff so we wouldn’t be tempted to leave the building and interfere?”

“Meeehhhhhh!” was the only response she got.

“Um, what’s a legacy?”

“You don’t know? It’s where a simmer - like your version of a god – plays a family through ten generations. We’re simmers too; we play our families and then upload stories about them that other people read for fun.”

Seth didn’t understand much that was going on, but he’d caught on to one idea: “So, me and my family members are kind of internet celebrities?”

“I guess kinda, yeah.”

“Well that’s fantastic! I could spend all day signing autographs! How much time do they spend on me with each episode or chapter or whatever?”

The teenage girl bouncing on the sofa laughed. “Well, they don’t spend that much time on you.”

“Huh?”

“You’re the child of a spare! I think I’ve seen you mentioned a few times and in the backgrounds of scenes and stuff though… But I wouldn’t remember your name if Chemic didn’t after you beat up a different version of her!”

“Okay brunette girl, what the hell? Am I an internet celebrity or not?”

“Well, you’ve been on the internet and in stories and stuff a bit, but other members of your family are more famous than you are.”

“What?! Who? Why?”

“Well, the current heiress is Nicola, and then it’ll be one of her children…”

“What’s so great about them?! I’m far more interesting than they are!”

“Nicola won the heir poll,” chipped in a second teenager, juggling tumblers behind the bar. “If you win the heir poll then you get to be heir and then the line will follow your descendents.”

“So there’s a vote? Who votes in this poll?!”

“Well we’re all on a sim story writing forum called boolprop.com. Whoever’s on there can vote for who they want.”

“Well you can tell your stupid forum that I want a recount! It must have been rigged! How could people not vote for me?”

“You weren’t in the poll – you weren’t even born yet! It was between Nicola and your mother.”

“Aunt Nicola beat my mother?! How?! Nicola’s a wimp! My mother could kick her ass any day of the week!”

“Look, it’s not up to us if you want another poll, it’s down to your personal simmer and Mzyra’s not here.”

“Ahh, if we get another poll do you think I could really vote for Terry this time?”

“Terry’s dead, Jaii. I’d rather vote for Sean…”

“Just so long as no-one wanted Kimmy!”

“I don’t know, she could be interesting.”

“Yeah, if by interesting you mean homicidal!”

“And she’s just as dead as Terry is. If we can have Kimmy again, we have to have Terry!”

Seth stood from the side, watching these strange people and wondered what he was so annoyed about. These people were clearly insane. Maybe they stalked his family for fun, but he’d never heard half the names they started spouting now and his family hadn’t been in Simfield for long, he would surely know his own family members’ names.

All of a sudden an upbeat song came on the stereo and all the people rushed over to dance the craziest, most out of time and unsynchronised dance Seth had ever seen.

He guessed he finally knew what this place must be – an insane asylum. He smirked as he left them to their crazy dances. It was time he got back to campus anyway.

But after he finished his term paper that evening, he was struck by a faint curiosity. They had the internet… Maybe he could find this so called ‘boolprop.com’. And if he couldn’t it’d only prove his hypothesis about the insanity of that place and those people.

A little while of searching (and some magic to surpass firewalls and security systems) and he found something that fit the description. A quick search for ‘Ryman’ and ‘legacy’ turned up…

His family. It was his family. He was even mentioned a few times – but frustratingly only a few times. No wonder they didn’t know his name, his simmer had barely included him at all! Who the hell was this bint and how dare she leave him out!

But he also found the heir poll – they had a whole section for threads that would decide people’s entire lives! What was wrong with these people?! Anyway, technically this ‘Terry’ he barely remembered hearing about before had won, but only Nicola and his mother had been eligible – and his mother had got less than half the votes Nicola had! He didn’t know who this Mzyra was, but maybe it was out of her control, maybe it was the fandom he should blame.

Back in his room, on his dark magic throne, Seth glared at the walls in frustration. He couldn’t believe this! It was so unfair! But what could he do about it? The stupid Ryman children didn’t deserve the heirship – they were all idiots with like 8 nice points and love! He was far more interesting than any of them! If the heirship had just been given to his mother… Surely he would have inherited it from her. Sara and Cindy didn’t look like they were going to have kids, Brendan wouldn’t settle down if you paid him and Haley was a total wuss. He would have been heir. He deserved to be heir!

He’d have to take it somehow… If he could make himself and his own family look good enough whilst making the Ryman family look bad enough… Then the fans themselves might demand that he be made heir instead…! But what did sims fans want? And what could he do?

Back on the computer, Seth spent hours scouring different stories, looking for tips. It seemed, from his research, that generally the more attractive sims were the most popular (unsurprising for what was mostly a load of young women), so he’d have to find a way around his and (more particularly) his fiancée's natural genetics… But that would come later. For now, he was rather intrigued by their own family history – his other aunt ‘Kimmy’ had almost stopped her entire family functioning at all… He could use that…

But one thing he did pick up on was that everyone was destined to have a number of children. If ever he wanted to… ‘remove’ someone from the running, he’d have to wait until they’d achieved that number. Annoying, but workable…

He then spent still more hours scouring every inch of his spell book for anything he could use against the family and he found a few particular treasures he was sure he could put to some use, though he focused on just the one for now…

So he spent yet more of that night brewing a special potion he planned to use the very next day…

And then, when all the children and teenagers were out at school and Alvin was in bed for a nap, Seth quietly let himself into the Ryman house…

Where he found the toddler. He wasn’t sure of her name – Georgie or something – but as far as he was concerned she would soon be Kimmy Mk2. The little girl happily took the potion-filled bottle from him with her big, trusting eyes and he laughed inwardly – that would soon change.

In fact, targeting the Ryman family was almost disappointingly easy. Initially he’d intentionally avoided Calvin after he joined his cousins at university, but Calvin eventually tracked him down, persistently trying to be his friend. Honestly, when people were this gullible and stupid, they almost deserved to be lied to. And Seth wasn’t about to turn down a chance to gain information on his target household.

He’d already discovered that Nicola had died – interestingly on the same day as he’d discovered the truth and in a rather odd way; she’d set herself on fire whilst cooking but without setting the food or cooker on fire… Either she truly was an idiot, had very bad luck, or Seth had more power through his anger than he realised… And if he was to blame? Well… She shouldn’t have stolen his heirship.

It was through subtly observing Calvin that Seth discovered the Rymans were taking a family holiday (annoyingly more than his family had ever done), giving him another chance to cripple the family…

Once they’d left and driven out of sight he pooled all of the magical energy he could manage into a giant ball….

And by the time it was done, hardly any of the house was left, including all of their savings. That would show them… ‘legacy family’, his ass.

And so while the Rymans’ lives were falling apart, Seth’s was only getting better. He graduated Summa cum Laude despite his distractions, which he enjoyed a lot too – whenever he got bored he could sit back and imagine how he would make them suffer next.

Not that he needed distractions, he spent plenty of time with Noelle still and they would graduate together. He hadn’t let her in on his ‘extra curricular activities’ – she had a pretty good sense of humour and enjoyed pranks, but… he got the feeling she might not appreciate the whole idea, what with wanting to be a policewoman and all (and who would have guessed that from the way she dressed and acted?).

One day he would explain and she would understand, but only when he was closer to his goal.

So the two moved back to his parents’ to get married. By this point Seth had cemented his plans for his own family quite firmly – which meant he had to persuade Noelle to get a facelift. She’d been resistant at first, but he had a way with words and she loved him, so eventually she gave in. He would have been okay with her as she was, but when you were acting up to an audience…? Standards had to be higher. And questions would have to be put off.

The two even built a very nice house around the corner, big enough for a pretty large family, and with enough space for all his magic paraphernalia out of the way.

And not coincidentally just across the street from the Ryman house, easily observed by a telescope on the porch. It always pleased Seth even just to see his old handiwork that had lead them to live in the small shack. Schadenfreude had always been one of his favourite emotions anyway.

But he didn’t have to work too hard on revenge just yet, he still wanted to follow his childhood dreams. He may not have been an internet celebrity to the ‘real world’ yet, but he was at least a celebrity chef in his own.

And he also worked on his relationships as a safety net.

He had his older sister – Sara, the Mayor for Simfield – in the palm of his hand and even moved into his house, while his wife – head of the Simfield police department – was very easily duped, both in chess and life.

If anyone ever cottoned on or made accusations, he was entirely defended by the most important people in the whole area.

But with those aspects of his life sorted, it was time to work on expanding his family and he found just the victim he needed to make it happen. Why not kill two birds with one stone?

And so, that night when the rest of the family was in bed, Seth teleported Alvin Ryman into his garage from work. At first he was confused, then, when he understood, he tried to run.

He didn’t get far. And Seth couldn’t say he felt bad about it . After all, one life was being lost in order to create another…

Or maybe another two. Buy one, get one free! Bargain. And a beautiful bargain it should be too…

Not very long later Seth had given birth to two beautiful twin girls. And they would be beautiful, and popular – his research said so. Some of the most popular sims out there, Spider Jerusalem Vetinari and Zane Devereaux, both were ‘reaper children’. There didn’t seem to be a definite consensus on whether reaper children had any specific powers, but that didn’t matter to Seth – they would be pretty, therefore popular and, being cuter than the Ryman children, fans would prefer them to any children the Rymans could produce. Powers were beside the point.

And as they aged, it looked like they were destined to fulfil Seth’s predictions – the only thing cuter than one adorable toddler was two adorable toddlers hugging.

Now all he had to do was bring the Rymans down further.

Though there was the rather unexpected addition of Noelle getting pregnant and having a little boy who had the potential to ruin everything… He looked almost nothing like his sisters. What if somebody figured out that the girls were reaper children? But, somewhat annoyingly, nobody seemed to be paying the family enough attention yet. And with Noelle’s altered face there was no aspect of the girls’ appearance that couldn’t theoretically be explained… He would be safe.

Elsewhere, Seth’s ties and surveillance was paying off. He heard, through his younger sister Haley, that Calvin Ryman was getting close to DJ Verse – a pre-made sim. That completely put Calvin out of the race for heirship and Seth thought him one of the front runners.

Out of the others…? Gina was apparently a lesbian and, judging by May, their simmer only adopted children for gay couples, so she couldn’t be heiress either. And Seth couldn’t possibly conceive of Rick or Allen being heir – way too bland. That left only one option…

And she was kind enough to invite him to her wedding. Seriously, Seth mused, people so easily manipulated ought to have been locked away for their own safety before they hurt themselves or others.

Needless to say, when the couple came to the altar, Seth merely had to mutter a spell and poor little Mia Ryman’s world came tumbling down around her. Then, when Juan Harris ran off, still under the effect of his magic, Seth followed him…

And easily continued his plans.

“Just let the cowplant eat you, Harris, it’ll be far less painful than what I’ll do to you if you try to escape…”

“I blame Liz Ng for this! If she hadn’t rejected me all those times I could have married her instead!”

And after that was all said and done, Seth milked his pet cowplant – from the looks of things he’d have to elongate his life if he wished to enjoy the heirship once he tore it from Mia’s grasp.

Invited again for the next wedding, Seth even found himself too impatient to wait for the wedding arch, de-loving Zack Landry before the wedding could really even get underway.

And another provided a tasty meal for Bessie the cowplant (having moved her inside, out of the cold).

It was almost routine by this point, really.

But he didn’t want Mia to get too discouraged yet. Seth wasn’t sure how many children Mia would be destined to have, but he guessed if she was heiress it would be at least three. He had to speed the romance along a bit…

And so he did, with some randomer in the park. He had been aiming for the cow, simply for comedy value, but hit the other guy instead. Whatever, another baby was another baby.

And since none of the pregnancies had lead to twins, Seth finally dared to dream that maybe that was it. Nicola had died after having all of her children, so now… Seth could do what he wanted to Mia. It was time to destroy the legacy. But he didn’t want to just kill her something – that would be crude. And any one of the children could take over. No, he thought of something else.

He’d considered getting Lyle and Jose taken away by social services before, when he teleported Lyle out of school, before he remembered the third child theory, but now… If he spread enough rumours about Mia’s poor mental health and how she was unfit to be a mother, then made it look like she’d entirely flipped… Three children in the social service system, never to be seen again…

After they’d gone, who else could it go to? Mia’s siblings were either ineligible or barely worth mentioning and once you looked further than that… What about that lovely Jayapalan family with its normal, happy family vibe and especially cute twins?

And the plan would be complete.

So, when Seth saw in his cauldron that Mia had given birth to the last child… What could he say? He felt like chicken tonight.

And she and her children would be lost forever… And he would be forever famous.

~~~End of Interlude~~~

Seth tries convincing Tom to join his evil plans, having read about his questionable past on the internet:

“So… Tom… Something about the way you always spend time alone and avoid everyone – it kind of seems to me like you might have had a rubbish childhood…”

“What’s it to you?”

“Well, you know, if you’ve got a lot of anger left over in your life, it could be helpful to take it out on someone else.”

“Maybe I will, by kicking your ass at chess.”

“Well you could do that, but wouldn’t it be more cathartic to take it out on some annoyingly happy family, like the kind you never really got?”

“You don’t know anything about me, Jayapalan. And I’m about to beat you.”

“Oh my God – look over there, it’s Terry’s ghost!”

“What?! Wh-

“Hang on, you’re cheating!”

“Me? No!”

“I don’t know how you know that name, Seth, or whatever happy family you seem to have it in for, but if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I don’t hold with cheaters.”

“Okay, okay…. Hm, ha! Now you’re going down! Prepare to lose, Mamuyac!”

“…Oh my god! Noelle’s making out with Diane over there!”

“Where?!”

“Heheheh…”

Oh, and in case you’re wondering whether Seth is only a git when I portray him as such: here’s an image and a half.

The man in the bandana is Seth’s little brother Brendan and the toddler in his arms is his son Norman. The woman Seth is romantically hugging (on ACR free will) is Brendan’s wife and Norman’s mother. On Norman’s birthday. In front of everyone. Now admittedly, both Brendan and Diane (the wife) are romance sims, but Norman shouldn’t be very happy – nor should Noelle, Seth’s wife, but then she wasn’t there for this. And I don’t think Brendan would challenge his brother anyway.

Brendan: “Just ignore your mother loving it up with your Uncle Seth, Norman… I’ll buy you a fire truck, later…”