Well, hello there. You're looking fetching today. Did you do something different with your hair?
Enough small talk! It is time for sims. If you missed Part I of my turn, it is
here. You'd probably like to find out what happens to Mira as she finishes her teen years and grows up, but too bad! You're going to have to wait, because . . .
. . . today's update is a Spares Interlude, where I give the spares a little taste of happiness before basically ignoring them forever. Last chapter, Sirius grew up, leaving Rigel and Mira at home with their parents. Rigel's gonna have to move out before we can get going on this chapter, so let's see where we find him.
Ah, chilling with his barely-dressed parents.
"I'm comfortable with my parents' thighs and you should be too."
Duly noted, Rigel. It is his birthday today, so once everyone is appropriately perked up, they all change into real clothes and head to the kitchen.
How many Harts can stand on one patch of tiles? Well, at least four. This group brings new meaning to a "close" family. Anyway, you guys might want to give Rigel a little space.
That's better. Happy birthday, Rigel. You are mean, evil, and now, finally, a bro. Quite a combination.
Time to move out now, Rigel?
"Well yeah. Just look at my parents. Get me out of here!"
Really. Check the pictures. I didn't even have time to move the camera before these two started autonomously sucking face.
So, Sirius's house looks much the way Eris left it. You'd think he could have fixed that by now.
Instead of fixing the sink, the newly reunited brothers head out to The Narwhal Arms, my favorite Windenburg spot, and look for girls. This bartender and Sirius get along great, but it turns out she's married. Boo. Randomly, Eris later became friends with this woman's husband somehow. I think it happened when I wasn't paying attention, so that was pretty surprising to me that Eris can make friends on her own.
Sirius sucks up his disappointment and shame over trying to flirt with a married woman by taking a nap in a corner of the nightclub and appreciated the DJ's vibe in his dreams or something. Okay.
Meanwhile, Rigel meets Jade Rosa and manages to finagle an invitation to Partihaus, the club she leads, by showing her things on his phone. Those must be really impressive pictures, I guess. Rigel is an acquired taste, but Jade liked him seemingly right away.
Freshly-energized Sirius headed outside and met a lovely girl named Lexi who was, more importantly, single. They hit it off pretty well.
Sirius: "So weird! She can do the secret alien handshake with me. I wonder what that means?"
The next day, the boys continued to work on courting their chosen ladies. Sirius is still quite oblivious about Lexi.
"Huh, you glow pink when I show you my 'sexy pose'. That's interesting. Oh well. Probably a coincidence. Wanna move in?"
Sirius: "Would you look at that cloud over there?"
Lexi: "Really? You're still not catching on?"
I had Lexi move in as soon as I could so I could see if her alien skin was subject to the bug I had, and it was. I guess I started this neighborhood before I fixed that. I ended up having to reinstall my entire game, but afterwards, aliens seem to be generating correctly, but only in new saves. For this save, I'll just change Lexi to an alien skin tone in CAS before they have babies and see what happens. By the way, Lexi was successfully able to remove her disguise, stand there for a moment, and then change back, all without Sirius 'discovering' that she's an alien yet.
After about another half an hour of flirting:
Lexi: "You know, I never thought I could love someone who wasn't an alien like me, but you're changing my mind, Sirius."
Sirius: "Wait . . . you're an alien?!!"
Lexi: "I also thought I would marry someone smart, but eh."
And thus Sirius becomes confident and Lexi embarrassed, but luckily she was so happy and flirty it didn't get in the way of their courtship.
Rigel is not impressed by his brother's first kiss.
With Lexi moved in and thoroughly smitten, it is finally Rigel's turn. Rigel is not autonomously mean to Jade, and she just seems to adore him for some reason.
They too share a first kiss soon, and for once they actually look like they are close enough to really be kissing! Well done, game. Jade moved in shortly after, because that's a totally normal thing to do on the same day you kiss someone for the first time.
With all that accomplished, I got the girls' formal wear ready for the inevitable weddings. This is Lexi's disguise's formal wear. You know how they always say something about "seeing through that one alien detail" in the disguise? Yeah, I think her formal wear may have been the problem.
Rigel actually managed a pretty romantic proposal for Jade, and again, she was more than happy to say yes to a guy she just met last night. Gotta love sim romances.
Lexi also said yes to Sirius's proposal. Things are going so well! Usually with spares I have some kind of problem, but everything seems to be going according to plan.
In fact, to speed things up, the two couples get busy before their wedding, and Jade is the first to conceive. Congrats, Jade!
And congratulations are also due to Lexi! One wedding is in order, and then two or more babies!
Lexi: "Sirius! Guess what's new?"
Sirius: "Well, in the last 36 hours, we met, kissed, fell in love, moved in together, got engaged, and woohooed for the first time, so I'd say there's quite a bit new with us."
He does have a point.
The next morning, there's some brotherly rivalry over the kitchen.
Rigel: "Dude, move! You're totally in the way."
Sirius: "For your information, I am
trying to bake a wedding cake so we can get married to our respective lovely fiancées."
Rigel: "And I'm trying to cook them breakfast because they're both knocked up and starving. I win. Now, move!"
I decided to throw a wedding party so the whole family would come and celebrate with the boys. Technically, it is Rigel and Jade's party, but that's only because since he is now a member of Partihaus, Rigel is the only one with acquaintances outside the family. I like a good turnout for my parties. However, really, this is a double wedding. Mira, ever the dutiful sister, is the first of the guests to arrive and heads straight to hug her brothers.
Now, presenting A Tale of Two Sides of the Wall. On this side, we have Denzel, smartly dressed, peppy, and happy to be attending his sons' weddings.
On this side, we have Eris, angrily stomping around and wearing her own wedding gown to the party. Sigh. Don't worry though about her age - she didn't age up while I was gone. I played the main family a little bit before I got to the boys, but those pictures fit better in the next part of the chapter.
Since it is officially their party and so the requirements apply mainly to them, Jade and Rigel go first.
Lexi and Sirius follow. I had Lexi get married in her disguise since she would be meeting a lot of people for the first time and I didn't want her getting embarrassed. That and she's still a peach-colored alien at this point.
Eris and Denzel flirted shamelessly throughout both sets of vows. Way to pay attention there, guys.
Afterwards, the party, comprised exclusively of Harts and Partihaus members, started. The married bartender that Sirius had met earlier was our mixologist.
Jade was eating a piece of cake - the piece she cut to share with her husband, in fact - but she had to use the bathroom really badly due to that whole pregnancy thing. The
moment her cake was unattended, who should swoop in to eat it but Eris? I love that she's a menace even when she's not under my control.
She also kicked over their trash can for no apparent reason . . .
"What kind of slob leaves trash in the yard? I know I raised my boys better, so it must be one of those new girls. The nerve!"
. . . and then complained about the trash in the yard. Never change, Eris.
While Eris was causing havoc in the backyard, the rest of the crew had a nice party. They ate leftover scrambled eggs when the requirement to eat food came up, because that's all the food the boys had in their fridge and I didn't feel like cooking new stuff. It's nice that Mira is getting a chance to passively meet some new people, too.
Satisfied with her trash antics, Eris enjoyed some eggs with her husband at the bar. A fun party for all.
Mira then did her great-grandmother Galaxy proud by doing random pushups at the end of the party. Harts truly are weird and wonderful. Rigel managed a gold medal party. Not that it really matters, but just for posterity, I thought I'd mention that.
Here's Lexi's alien makeover. She's really cute. I went with blue . . . for the deep and complicated reason that I like blue. Now let's hope the skin carries over into her child!
Lexi: "Ah, feels good to get out of that disguise. Man, I am just so happy. First the engagement, then the wedding, and the news of the baby, too! Not to mention I'm still feeling the effects of our first kiss. No wonder I'm glowing! Oh, what are you watching? A comedy? That's cool. Hey dear, are you okay? You're not saying much."
Sirius: "Just . . . laughing . . . so . . . hard."
"Comedy . . . so . . . funny. So . . . hysterical . . ."
"Urk."
Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. In case you didn't guess from Lexi's monologue up there, they were both extremely happy due to a critical pileup of strong happy moodlets, and then Sirius autonomously watched a comedy while I was taking care of Lexi, thus making him hysterical, thus making him laugh himself to death. This is not good. First emotional death I've had, though.
Lexi: "Please, Mr. Grim! We just got married and are expecting a baby! Please don't take my husband from me on my wedding day!"
Jade: "Ugh, I don't feel so good. All this drama . . ."
Grim: "Oh, all right. Here's your husband back. Just mind what he watches on TV when you have instant courtships, yeah?"
I deleted the TV as soon as I could get into buy mode again. No more emotional deaths in this household for me, thank you! I guess I spoke too soon when I said that everything was going well in a spares' household, but it turned out okay in the end.
However, apparently the excitement of seeing Sirius die and come back to life was too much for poor, pregnant Jade, so she went into labor. Rigel, exhausted from the party, slept through the entire thing, even when Grim came to check in on his wife. Also, I was still so overcome by my own emotions over Sirius's would-be death that I didn't even notice the plumbbob in the picture, and this was the only one I had of Grim checking in on Jade.
Jade successfully gave birth . . . to a blue alien baby? Huh? Rigel is a green half-alien and Jade is a tan non-alien, so I'm really not sure where the blue came from. Very mysterious. At least she's healthy. Meet Dione.
While Jade was giving birth, Grim chatted with Lexi, who was so grateful to have Sirius back. Sirius had calmed himself down in the mirror a few times since he was still hysterical when he came back, but he's past the worst of it now.
I was playing this household a bit more hands off, and as soon as Dione was born, Jade went to bed too, leaving her infant un-fed and un-snuggled. Lexi autonomously picked up the slack, indicating that she should be an excellent mother soon.
In fact, she's due right on schedule behind Jade. Sirius is excited to be a father.
Lexi: "I'm going to birth our baby now."
Sirius: "What?!! BABY? Oh no! What do I do?"
Pre-parental panic will never not be funny. And I love how matter-of-fact Lexi is despite the fact she's in labor.
Lexi gave birth to a lovely little girl who inherited her blue skintone . . .
. . . as well as a lovely blue little boy. Lexi and Sirius had twins! I'll let you in on a little secret. I actually forced twins with a mod because it's a spares' house and I wanted to make sure the skin would inherit correctly. Seems to have worked. Now Lexi and Sirius have a daughter and a son.
Wow, I can't believe I'm saying this, but the alien babies are actually kind of cute. Way better than the regular ones. I do like the pointed ear, although this particular baby (the girl) grew up to have Sirius's regular ear shape.
The daughter is named Iocaste and the son is Iapetus. Kids this generation will be named after moons of planets. Or "satellites" of planets. I'm kind of playing fast and loose with the definition of moon. Iocaste is a teeny moon of Jupiter, only 5 km in diameter. It is named after Jocasta, the mother and wife of Oedipus in mythology. Iapetus is a very interesting moon of Saturn. If you like planetary body science, you should check the
Wikipedia article for starters. It is the largest object in the solar system known not to be in hydrostatic equilibrium, for example, at least according to that article. It also has a cool ridge around most of the moon at the equator, much like a really badass belt. Interesting stuff. Iapetus in mythology is a Titan. Dione in mythology is also a Titan, and Dione the moon is also a moon of Saturn. Dione and Iapetus were both discovered by Cassini, whose name was also used for the unmanned spacecraft that recently surveyed Saturn and produced some really stunning pictures of these moons among other things. /geeking over
Anyway . . . Sirius and Lexi are immediately attentive parents to their twins.
Rigel and Jade at least slept in the same room as Dione. I guess that almost counts as parenting.
I grew the kids up quickly. Iocaste and Iapetus are full aliens, and show quite a few differences if you look closely, though at first they appear to be pretty similar twins. Iocaste has rounded ears like Sirius, as well as his eye shape. Iapetus has Lexi's ear and eye shape. They both seem to have Lexi's nose.
Regardless of how they look, Lexi and Sirius are just glad to be able to get to know them better. Let's make them over, though. The very-similar-twin-alien thing they have going on creeps me out a bit.
Here's Iocaste. I only rolled this part of her personality since she'll never grow up. I also just noticed that she escaped CAS with dark brown eyebrows somehow. Damn you, aliens and your squirrely hair genetics! *shakes fist*
And here's Iapetus. Are we sure he wasn't switched with Rigel's kid at birth? Oh well. Evil definitely runs in this family.
Once Rigel finally woke up, Dione also grew up and she is still blue. I don't know why and I don't like it.
So I changed it! She is not even part-alien, so I only had access to the green in the regular skin palette rather than the alien green, and I think they might be subtly different, but at least she looks more like her father like this. Dione is a good mix of her parents and has what I think is an adorably contradictory personality.
Meeting your daughter for the first time as a child: weird anywhere but in a sim house. Having your first interaction be a Hart hug: priceless.
Iapetus and Iocaste also are shown some love. I think the kids in this family will be well taken care of.
They also have each other to play with, so that should keep them busy until there's some cousins back at the main house that want to meet them.
Speaking of the main house and babies, they got the bunny finally and I put it in the nursery, which already had a lot of bunny decals on the walls. However, to get around to baby-having, Mira still needs to do some growing and select a spouse, get married, all that good stuff. That'll have to wait until next chapter, so until then, check in with Kristina and me at
SiMania. Thanks for reading!
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