#hlcn: mary

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easter sunday, 1968 🤍🐇

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august 28, 2003 9:00 p.m. grant's childhood home

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august 11, 2003 4:00 p.m. st. francis catholic church

how long the day is, without seeing you, my sorrow forever; the sun and bright moon are moving in shadow, my sorrow forever; the morning stars are weeping tears, my sorrow forever; the skies above are in a cloak of sorrow, my sorrow forever; until you return again the dew will not lie, och, och, och, ochón forever 🎵

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august 28, 2003 6:00 p.m. muse gourmet

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Seven Sins Challenge Which of your OCs fits pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth. Then pass it on…

oh this is such a cool challenge!! it's perfect for thinking of & utilizing my characters differently. thank you so much for sending this prompt my way <3

pride - grandma aoife. she has an IMMENSE amount of pride. anything that makes her look even marginally weak, out of control, or wrong gets an immediate and very visceral reaction, and she takes pretty desperate measures to preserve her outward appearance, whether that is literally the way she looks or perceptions of who she is. like she cannot live without the protection pride brings.

greed - honestly? it's grant's dad juhani. i know, i know, we don't see him much, but he's definitely the greedy one (other than mary.) he cares a lot about making money, as evidenced by that one dinner post in the story when he, mary, and their friends were trying to convince grant into being a doctor because it's a profession for the wealthy (and that the money matters more than helping people...)

wrath - hey mother mary, this is the place for you, you monster! i got nothing to say for her except she's an extremely evil and vengeful woman. nasty nasty nasty

envy - hmm, this one was the hardest for me to decide on without repeating a character because i think SO many of my sims could fit in this category. but i would actually say kelly, grant's sister. i don't want to spoil too much because i have plans for addressing the family backstory more, but just based on what's already posted, you can see she's very envious of the way elizabeth (the other sister) was treated, and she does some wack shit to try and receive the same treatment.

lust - we all know who this is! it's miss santa fucker päivi & her cheating ways!

gluttony - let's be real, it's grant. he's a perfect fit because he's the dude with previous (and nigh fatal) drug and alcohol addictions, and who still to this day has a penchant for binge eating to fix his feelings because he can't (and won't) use chemical solutions now. he is far better now but i think that urge is always going to be in him. it's just been a coping mechanism for so long and the particular mental health ailments he struggles with are co-morbid with these not very helpful coping strategies.

sloth - this is colm. he tends strongly towards being very lazy (unless it something is 100% interesting to him, at which point he'll get shit done.) but usually, he puts everything off, even the stuff he's at least semi-interested in. he's kind of all or nothing.

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august 12, 2003 12:00 a.m. st. francis catholic cemetery

things you said at my grave 📗

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august 28, 2003 6:00 p.m. muse gourmet

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august 28, 2003 6:00 p.m. muse gourmet

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august 6, 2003 12:00 a.m. intensive care unit

and i just hope you know that if you say goodbye today i'd ask you to be true 'cause the hardest part of this is leaving you 🎵

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callahan family genetics

i keep seeing other folks do this, and i always love seeing genetic trees, so ta-da! here's my version ✨ say hello to the entire core family from my story (minus spouses)

first generation (row 1)

aoife & joseph

second generation (row 2 & 3)

mary, patrick & bridget

third generation - mary's kids (row 4 & 5)

elizabeth, kelly & grant

third generation - paddy's kids (row 6 & 7)

adam, hannah, chelsea & alex

third generation - bridget's kids (row 8)

shannon & lorcan

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OC ASK: 6, 9, 10, 20, 39, 50 <3

ahh so many!! thank you very much for the ask 💘

6. the most Problematic™

welp...of course it has to be grant's mom 😭 followed by his father. he's not even maliciously problematic, he's just a big fucking loser tbh

9. the worst at lying

it's like a tie between grant and shannon. grant is one of those people that ALWAYS shows what his emotions are, so even when he's trying really hard to do something like lie, everyone just...automatically knows. he also laughs when he lies so 💀

shannon could be really good at lying, she's certainly crafty enough to come up with a good one BUT it never last long. she lies and then like five minutes later she feels guilty and coughs up the real info

10. the worst dressed

honestly it's adam, who is one of the side character cousins in the family LMAO. everyone makes fun of his very "men's section at kohls" clothing selection

20. rude to waiters

here we go, it's grant's mom again 😭 she's a karen

but in the interest of a more interesting answer, i might have to say lilly. not in the traditional karen way but in the "i customize all my orders, go out to dinner with massive friends groups, and ask the waiters to do annoying things like split the check individually for a party of 20 people). at least she tips well? 🥴

39. presses the door close button on elevators so people approaching can’t get in

BRIDGET. AUNT BRIDGET

she would slam that button 100x in a row to avoid being stuck in there for a minute with strangers

50. has a tumblr

shannon. just undoubtedly 100% shannon. she procrastinates by going on tumblr

i think grant WOULD consider an account for shits and giggles...but has never gone through with it. yet he somehow knows all the deep tumblr lore to a suspicious degree (thanks shannon)

yunha also. yunha would be a tumblr girlie

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1 and 12!

tyy so much for the ask, i appreciate it!! (btw the sim in your icon is so gorgeous 😭❤️)

1. the least likeable

without a doubt, grant's mom mary 💀 she's literally THE worst person you could ever imagine. tradcath, an abusive piece of shit, and 100% would be fully absorbed in facebook-driven conspiracy theories

12. the worst dancer

hjdskfjdkfjdsk sorry grant...it's him

[holocene-sims]

Things said meme number 31 for Grant and Grant's late sister situation 😭😭😭

ooh okay this is a good one 👀 a really good one! sorry it took me so long to post, though!! it's been sitting in my drafts for a hot minute lol

anyway welcome to the angst express train 🌧️

btw this is a pretty fucked up example of grant's childhood so...

tw for death mention & tw for abuse. anyone reading this, scroll right past this post please if this could be triggering for you! the part with the abuse is placed under the cut for safety as well, so you won't see anything unless you click on it!!

31. things you said at my grave

she’d given him a letter last month.

she handed it to him in the middle of the night without much fanfare. she knocked on his bedroom door, slipped the letter through the crack, and walked away with nary a word spoken.

grant picked it up, though, soon after she vanished and found that she’d sealed the envelope with a bright pink hello kitty birthday sticker. he flips it over and reads the perfect cursive inscription on the back.

“happy birthday to my favorite person <3 XOXO, elizabeth”

it wasn’t his birthday, so he put it away in the nightstand, confused, and saved it for later.

she did the same thing the next night, although that time she’d explicitly asked to come into his room, and she came bearing a beautiful wooden lockbox–almost an exact replica of their grandmother’s decades-old handmade jewelry box–and a key to go with it. she placed it neatly on top of his cluttered shelf of hockey trophies, then sat beside him on his bed where he lay awake, staring at the ceiling.

“what are you doing?”

“stuff,” elizabeth replies, her voice shakier and more fragile than ever, “don’t tell kelly.”

“don’t tell kelly what?”

“that i didn’t do this for her.”

“didn’t do what for her?”

elizabeth leans over and cups his face in her cold, skeletal hands. when he looks up, he sees a waterfall of tears pouring down her cheeks, and suddenly, he knows what all of this is about.

“the letter i gave you yesterday...whether i'm here or not, open it on your birthday.” elizabeth lingers for a moment, still cradling his face, then she abruptly sits upright and points to the box. “and all of those...you can look through them whenever you want. look, not open. but it’s just letters. you’ll figure it out. you’ll know when it’s time for each of them.”

grant rises from bed, too, and clamors out from underneath his pile of blankets to rest beside her on the edge.

“lizzie, no–” he pleads, grabbing for her wrist, “don’t die.”

“i don’t want you to feel like you’re alone for the rest of your life. you wouldn’t believe me if i say i think heaven is real and that you shouldn’t worry because i'll be with you forever, just farther away. so i had to do something, okay? keep these as a reminder of me, that i'm always here. grant, i'm–um, i'm so sorry i can’t see you grow up. i'm so sorry i can’t protect you anymore. it’s the only regret i have about this life. but i know you and i know that you’ll be fine, that you’ll live a good life, and that you’ll be happy someday when you get out of here. i can let go because i know you’ll be okay, but i can’t let you feel like you’re alone. okay? i will miss you more than anything and i know it’ll be the same for you, but keep these and, um...someday way off in the future, we’ll see each other again and we’ll have a lot to catch up on.”

and now he kneels here, sobbing, at her fresh grave site in torrential rain under the pitch black blanket of night, clutching the first letter in the safety of the inner pocket of his rain jacket. the grave is no more than a roughshod pile of unearthed dirt surrounded by mountains of flowers and signs with elizabeth’s name and pictures of her before she’d been struck by the hand of fate and the daunting c-word. the photographs are far from old, being handpicked from last year’s high school graduation photoshoot.

grant hesitates to pull out the letter but does so anyway, knowing his time here is as limited as her time on earth was. he’d forgotten to fiddle with the house security alarm before he leapt out his second-story bedroom window and hauled himself down to the ground via the nearest tall tree. the last sound he’d heard as he sprinted out the backyard and over the wrought-iron fence was the shrill whine of the alarm alerting everyone to an “intrusion.”

surely the three mile dash from his home to the catholic church’s cemetery would give his parents plenty of opportunity to discover he'd gone missing and for them to subsequently bother to care about where their least favorite child ran off to.

just as he begins anxiously working away at peeling off the sticker without damaging it, the distinct echo of footsteps in entrenched mud behind him sends his heart rate flying sky-high. he considers making a run for it again to either his uncle’s or his grandparents’ house down the hill–there’s no doubt he can outrun his 50 year old parents and unathletic older sister–but decides against it.

he’d come here on the earliest hour of his twelfth birthday to read the letter with the company of his sister, even though she's six feet underneath him. no way he’s backing out now.

“you are nothing but trouble! get up! get up right now!”

lightning strikes a tree on the opposite side of the cemetery. the ensuing bomb of thunder kills his ears and nearly drowns out his mother’s incessant screaming.

grant stays where he is, praying lightning strikes him before his mother does. finally, though, the sticker releases and he frees the letter from the envelope in record speed.

“grant, come on, just get up…” his sister kelly begs. “it’s late and it’s storming and we have to pick out the headstone tomorrow. we all miss her. now let’s go.”

his mother tries again to rattle him. “there is no need for you to go around making this all about you! i should not have to chase you down in the middle of the night when i have just buried my daughter!”

he ignores them all and reads the letter patiently.

he’s halfway through when kelly’s whining breaks his concentration.

“let’s do this the easy way, grant.”

if his father is there, he’s doing what he always does, and that’s nothing.

“alright, that’s enough!” his mother screams at the top of her lungs. “get up or help me god you’ll be in the ground next to her!”

grant immediately halts what he’s doing and glances over his shoulder, eyeing his family with suspicion. his father and sister are clad in pajamas but his mother–who is marching his way like darth vader on steroids–had apparently wasted energy and time to dress herself up in proper clothing before driving out this way.

of course she had. she can’t be seen abusing her children in anything less than the 400 dollar dress she’d worn to the funeral yesterday, can she?

seeing her coming after him, he panics and starts gearing up to run away, only to fumble with the letter and let it slip from his hands to scurry away in the harsh wind. he desperately reaches for it, only to be stopped dead by his mother’s talons gripping onto his hair and yanking him backwards. he crumbles under the unexpected weight of her strength and his head slams full-force into the solid ground. she slips up for just a moment, letting him go, but nothing stops her. she reaches down and grabs him by the shoulders and continues dragging him by hand through the mud.

“mary, let him go.” at last, his father pipes up. “that’s a bit much.”

“shut up and stay out of my way! i’ll let the child go when he obeys me for the first time in his life. he’ll learn someday!”

grant’s eyes flutter open to the world spinning like a tilt-a-whirl around him. he lifts his head and looks out ahead of him, but the poor grave just before him is a blurry mess of colors, all washed out by the horrible ache splitting his brain in half.

“i just wanted to be with her…” grant whimpers.

“well, me too, grant! but you don’t see me or your father or your sister acting a fool, do you?”

the grave slowly slips farther and farther away as he’s pulled–kicking and fighting and smashing his head into the ground every other second–towards the parking lot. but he grows tired of lashing out against his mother and his fear and hatred of her is replaced by primal, unbridled grief.

“why did you leave me?!” ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch. “take me with you, take me with you, take me with you! don’t leave me! please, please, please…take me with you! or come back! please don’t leave me! elizabeth, please…”

he braces for the impact of his body on concrete just as a bright burst of yellow from a flashlight shines in his and his mother’s faces. she gasps and stumbles away, releasing her iron-grip on his body. grant stumbles forward and up onto his knees, almost careening over, but he’s caught by another set of arms.

he doesn’t even need to look up to know his grandparents overheard the commotion and rushed over to discover the source.

somewhere off in the background, his mother is engaging his uncle and his grandfather in a screaming match, but grant loses track of the words soon enough and melts into his grandmother’s warm embrace, still sobbing.

“please don’t leave me, elizabeth.” he begs once more into the void. “don’t leave me. i don't want to be alone.”

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6 19 36!

mango 🧡 thank you for the ask (and for creating the meme!!)

6. the most Problematic™

one evil woman by the name of mary callahan, yearly winner of the worst mother ever award

19. mean to their mom

she's BACKKKK ⬆️

aoife doesn't deserve it but mary treats her like shit anyway

36. doesn't tip

päivi! and in america, she blames it on "being european" 🙄

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7, 8, 34, and 50 for mary <3

thank you so much for the ask!! i assume you mean grant's mom mary, which means this is going to be hilarious 😭😂 but fun because i've never gotten asks for her before!

but really that woman is a nightmare

reminds me, i gotta post her mini character intro later. it's been sitting in my drafts with a few other ones

7. do they have any unusual fears?

not really unusual, i suppose, but she is afraid of being alone or abandoned. too bad her behavior created that situation for her...no one wants to be around her except her fellow obnoxious rich white women 💀

8. do they collect anything? if so, what and why?

does it count if she's collecting all of her dead daughter's items? 🥴

34. how well do they deal with grief?

poorly. very poorly. case in point, her favorite golden child died of cancer at eighteen years old, and mary has never recovered. she never dealt very well with the grief, though. she internalized it, then lashed out at everybody else.

she blamed her husband for not noticing elizabeth was sick. she blamed grant for her dying (specifically, grant was in the hospital room alone with her when she died, and mother mary accused him of not getting a doctor to come "help"). she blamed her parents for passing on the shitty genetic susceptibility to cancer.

and she didn't really just stop there. she then expected her other kids to step up and try to be elizabeth 2.0 and 3.0, putting impossible expectations on them (but that's a story for another day). she treated the other sister well because she was the other favorite child, but she took most of her grief out on grant. she refused to let him celebrate his birthday because she said it was disrespectful to elizabeth, etc. so much bullshit.

and these days, like i said, she still hoards all of elizabeth's things. not once since she died almost twenty years ago has mother mary let a single person in the family look at or touch elizabeth's things. not even her (ex)husband or her kids.

mother mary just can't heal or let any of the past go.

50. what is your favorite thing about them?

i will try and pick something positive about her. she's a pretty terrible person in the story canon but i'll give her a break just this one time!

about the grief thing...part of that is the whole "narcissist loses favorite child" thing and part of that is true, genuine grief. she lost her oldest child, the girl who made her a mother, the girl who was a straight A student and prom queen and MVP of her high school softball team.

so i guess my favorite thing about her is that somewhere deep inside, there is a heart there. of course, she only extended that love to her daughters, not her son or her (ex)husband or her parents or her siblings, but there is one in there and she really and truly felt pain over the loss of her oldest child. and she really did love elizabeth outside of the whole weird narcissistic attachment thing.

it's a horrible thing to lose a child, especially when you yourself and your husband are both doctors and you know that you cannot do anything to save her. and i have to give mary that as well. she did feel immense guilt that there was nothing they could do to help.

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july 19, 2021 6:00 p.m. old henford restaurant