The Bates Family Legacy [7.2]
Hey, welcome back, and Merry Christmas! I hope you're having a lovely day with your family, and that you got lots of gifts!
I finally had some time to sit down and put out the next Bates chapter, so here it is.
Last time: I sent Bryce and Seth to break up with their old girlfriends so they could marry Corrine and Soraya, and that did not go well. Soraya and Seth got married and fornicated, Ellie came to visit the house, and Bryce started wooing Corrine. Aidan got promoted to Creature-Robot Cross Breeder and achieved his LTW, and Soraya stole the spotlight at the park from Seth's ex. Tough day for Seth's ex, losing a boyfriend and a gig to the same woman. Yowch. Aidan and Layla moved out of the family compound and into a (bigger, nicer) house, and the world shed a few tears. (At least, I did.) Seth fainted at the sight of a ghost, because he's a big, big wuss. Bryce and Corrine got married and had the sex, and I believed that neither of the girls were pregnant.
So let's head under the cut and see what the Bates got up to this time around.
When I went back into the house for the first time, this is where I found Quinn. And I'm loathe to miss a fun photo opportunity!
She's so much fun to photograph, when she's not playing an instrument or trying (futilely) to get promoted!
Meanwhile, Soraya and Youssef started a two-person band. Even though Soraya's only his niece, Youssef's much closer to her than to Corrine. And she's closer to him than she is to her own parents.
Speaking of Soraya, this looks suspicious.
When I saw her run upstairs to the toilet, it pretty much confirmed what I thought: I was totally wrong about saying neither of the girls were pregnant.
But then, this was weird. When I tracked Soraya up to the bathroom, Quinn also happened to be standing there, with her que conspicuously blank. Before that point, she'd been doing an activity that doesn't just cancel itself out.
Later that night, Terry came to visit, and I had fun taking pictures of him playing pool.
I MISS HIM SO MUCH. <3
Remember that hot guy that I found out of nowhere? Yeah, he's engaged. Damn it.
Midway through the morning, Corrine and Soraya stopped what they were doing and froze for several hours. I think we all know what this means.
SIMULTANEOUS PREGNANCY!
(I honestly have no idea how I pulled this off and the forgot about it. ou'd think somehow making two women in the same household pregnant at the same time would be something I'd remember, but no. And, like every stage of their pregnancy happened at the same time.)
Oh, and I found out where the other cute guy was from - turns out he was a proprietor at the park. So Soraya will be seeing him a lot in her future! (Not like I can do anything about it.)
The couple that reads pregnancy books together, stays together!
(Yes, tha is Soraya's pregnancy outfit.)
Meanwhile, Corrine was being a totally adorable pregnant woman.
And Bryce was being such a doting husband. He rolled up the want to read pregnancy books like 500 times. I don't know how much he's going to learn from reading the same two books over and over, but at least he had good intentions!
And while I was waxing romantic about the two of them, they went off and slept in Soraya and Seth's bed.
Not cool, guys. Not cool.
Seth and Soraya were blissfully unaware, though, while they were chilling on the couch.
They're such a cute hipster couple.
Soraya is probably the only pregnant supermodel. So sassy.
Awww. Just aww.
You ever go back through the photos you took and wonder why you took them? I feel that way about these. Literally no clue why I took them, other than maybe to showcase how cute Corrine is?
LET'S TAKE A TEMPORARY INTERMISSION FOR YOUSSEF'S MUSIC-MAKING.
~Intermission over~
It freaked me out a little to see Soraya pregnant. She's so skinny that the pregnancy almost didn't register with her, so she'd be leaning back with her tummy jutted out, but there'd be no tummy to speak of. It was like she was birthing a phantom baby.
D'awww.
While the girls were on mat leave I had positively nothing for them to do (Corrine had all her job-relevant skills built up, and the only thing Soraya can do for her job is perform), so I got them to play a round of pool. That was super fun, and super cute.
One of those three photos was almost my cover photo, but I didn't want to spoil the simultaneous pregnancy surprise.
See what I mean about the belly? Soraya's as far along as Corrine, but looks like she's a full sim-trimester behind. Eerie.
Fun fact that even I didn't know: Seth knows how to DJ! He got an opportunity during the girls' pregnancies, to play a 3-hour gig down at the coffee house. I've never had a sim DJ before, so I clicked yes right away - I wanted to see how that'd play out.
Turns out, Seth's quite the showman! He drew a really big crowd, and they had a lot of fun.
I also spotted this gorgeous young woman. Figures - the only time we don't have any Bates available to spare, all the good looking sims come crawling out of the woodworks.
This is how boring Quinn is now. I had nothing for her to do when she got home from work, so I had her meditate for close to 12 hours.
IT'S BABY TIME!
I don't usually find sim labour-freak outs to be super funny, but I had the sound on when Corrine went into labour, and could hear Bryce losing his shit. It was so funny that I recorded a video to embed for you guys, but the sound went mysteriously missing. So suffice it to say, seeing a big, burly, lumberjack-type jumping around uselessly while his wife was in labour was really, truly, laugh-out-loud funny.
Oh, and Soraya went into labour at the exact same time, upstairs in her parents' former bedroom.
As if there wasn't enough going on, Seth spotted one of the family ghosts and fainted, effectively missing the births of his child and Corrine & Bryce's.
It's a boy! Welcome to the world, baby Keenan Bates!
I've got plans for Corrine and Bryce to have another child, but if that doesn't work out, you're looking at the eighth-generation heir of the Bates legacy.
Soraya, on the other hand, had a girl - baby Evelyn Bates.
Naturally I didn't want to wait four days to see how the babies looked, so I just aged them up on the spot.
Meet Keenan! He's definitely his father's son, but he's got features that date back as far as Terry and Josh. I'm sort of in love with the colour of his eyes - I really don't know who he got them from! I gave him the brave and clumsy traits, because I think I'm either going to send him into a career of fire-fighting or police work, and want his life to be complicated by his clumsiness. (Yes, I'm an ass.)
Evelyn is similarly adorable. She got Seth's nose, but is otherwise a pretty good blend of her parents. I gave her the grumpy and eccentric traits because I thought they'd amuse me, but now they feel ill-suited to such a charming little girl. (Who is, actually, quite happy most of the time.)
Shortly after the kids transitioned, the toddler-training began.
Outside, Seth's incompetence was showing.
Speaking of Seth, that night he did another gig at the same coffee house.
He also pulled in another great crowd, and played a good set. I like that there's the option on the turn table to play funk music, because that seems like the kind of music Hipster Seth would play.
Since Soraya wa finally ff mat leave, I sent her out to the town proprietors to audition for gigs. Surprising no one, she was accepted at the park, and declined at the coffee house where her husband had entertained crowds the night before. Apparently she's "not practiced enough yet." Bah humbug.
Corrine has an eccentric trait, and she also had her handy skill built up a bit, so I thought it was safe to finally send her out to the tinkering table.
Apparently not.
YEAH GUYS, DON'T PUT OUT THE FIRE ON HER ASS. SHE DEFINITELY HAS TIME TO SPARE.
Thank God Quinn got her act together and saved her daughter's life. Barely.
Up until that moment, I thought I was going to have to give up hope of Bryce and Corrine making any more cute babies.
Obligatory cute photo of the dads interacting with their kids.
Bryce and Seth are pretty great dads, though. (Bryce more so than Seth.)
While Soraya waited for her gig times, I had her sing for tips in the park, to get more job experience. She was a crowd favourite, and also got promoted.
Also, this cutie turned up. WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I WAS LOOKING FOR POTENTIAL SPOUSES?!?!
No reason for this photo other than Corrine looking super-sassy.
Meanwhile, in another household, Aidan got old. Friendly reminder that Quinn is days away from the same transition. Sigh.
Here's some Evelyn spam, because she's adorable.
Yes, that's Corrine playing with her, because Corrine had nothing to do while she waited to go back to work again.
Corrine also took Keenan for a long stroller ride around the town, which, because of the hills in Starlight Shores, was more of her walking with him on her hip, and the stroller stowed in her inventory. I hate that the sims can't use strollers on hills, no matter how shallow they are.
Finally Soraya had her gig time, and lucky for her, no other artists showed up to steal the spotlight. (Although I really think it would've been just desserts if Seth's ex-girlfriend had.)
By all accounts it was a successful show - the sims in attendance were entertained, and the proprietors seemed happy.
But Soraya was very sulky about it, and even got a "bad show" moodlet. I really don't understand why.
Also, found the cutest sim in Starlight Shores. And, DAMN IT, I CAN'T USE HER FOR ANYTHING. UGH.
So, Soraya's got a new way of auditioning for proprietors...
I'm really not sure I'm comfortable with it...
But she got the gig, so whatever.
Anyway, this is where I'll leave you for now. It's been fun!
- Kelsey