Chapter 25: Ancestor Worship

I'm pretty sure that's not a giant sandworm of Dune.

It could be. This is a desert planet, after all.

Well, sort of, I guess. But even for a desert, Lucky Palms still has too much water to sustain a sandworm based ecosystem.

I still think it's a sandworm.

I think maybe you've been hitting a little too hard on the spice, cat.

(Seriously, why would a cat think about Dune sandworms while doing a 'freak out' interaction?)

Back to our regularly scheduled program, Sitara goes into labor just as her parents are getting ready to woohoo in her bed.

"What did you do to me? I didn't wish for this! I'm in agony!"

I had to ensure the next generation, is all. Jut head over to the hospital and it will all be over soon. You'll never have to do this again. Unless you wish for it.

"Wish for this? Are you crazy?"

Sitara returns from the hospital a few hours later with the girl both she and Tim had wished for. Her name is Lalita, and she's a Natural Cook and Charismatic.

The points Tim got for fulfilling the baby gender wish was enough for him to be able to change his LTW. He now wants to be a Rock Star, which is much easier than being a One Sim Band.

Lalita makes 3 grandchildren total. Kiran is nursing a wish for 5. Kesari has yet to contribute her hare of grandchildren.

Chelsea wished to hire a butler. So, here's Theodore.

You know, I"m pretty sure that woohooing in your butler's bed constitutes as some kind of harassment. At the very least, he might quit on you if you keep fouling his bed.

"Nah. Theo is cool. He won't mind."

"Sir, I couldn't help but notice that my bed was unmade this afternoon...Did you and Madam perchance mess it up?"

"It wasn't us. Maybe the gnomes did it?"

Despite her insistence that she wouldn't ever wish for another child, she and Tim did roll simultaneous Have Baby wishes the day after Lalita was born.

Hey, Theo, dude, I'm pretty sure this isn't part of your job description...

"I'm just making sure they do it in their own bed."

"When you get a little bigger, we'll play toys together, Lalita!"

Yeah, hate to burst your bubble Tim, but the range of child interactions is really limited. There's no playing 'with'. You can play next to each other, that's about it. Sorry.

"Seriously? I can't even play with my kid? EA sucks!"

Yeah, tell me about it.

Sitara gets her baby bump in the same spot where she went into labor before, while sitting at her writing desk. Because, all her other wishes still involve writing, I think now she going for 40 novels or something. She's currently bringing in 24k a week in royalties.

Timothy rolls a wish to increase his gambling skill, so he's off to the casino on his day off. 

I was all a-tinlge with excitement, since this would be my first time actually using the casino stuff.  Will Tim blow the family fortune? Will he become addicted and have to attend gambler's anonymous meetings?

After a few Sim hours watching a bunch of repetitive animations, Tim breaks even. Yay?

Outside, the gnomes appear to be engaged in some form of ancestor worship.

Theo has been very helpful since he was hired, making the beds, clearing plates, taking the bad food out of the fridge...but after a few days I realize that he has some really bad personal hygiene, and is trailing streams of green funk wherever he goes.

Artistic gnome renders. Don't judge me.

So, Chelsea rolls a wish to skinny dip with Theo. I indulge her fancy in the hopes that enough time in the hot tub might help old stinky with his green funk problem. His 'naked' hair kind of surprised me.

"I am a man of mystery."

Kiran got an opportunity where he had to get 10k in campaign contributions. So he headed out to the cafe next door and asked a few people to fund his campaign. And then as soon as he got the 10k, he got the opportunity fail music...I have no idea why. But, oh well. At least I got to get a picture of Suresh as an elder. Kiran and Chelsea will be aging up next time I play.

Pregnant Tamira drops by for a visit. This will be her second child. And with Sitara pregnant, too, Kiran has got his five grandkids wish in the bag.

"I'm on a hygiene strike," Theo explain to Tamira, "I refuse to bathe until your parents stop using my bed as their personal love nest."

"Yeah, good luck with that."

Sitara is way too serious for her mom and older sister. She's reading a book for a work opportunity. She'll be getting a promotion on her next workday, probably, and that will take her to level 10 of her career and fulfill her LTW. And I will be in a position to pick a child as heir. That should be interesting.

Lalita ages up to toddler. Sitara rolls a wish to teach her to walk, but everyone is too tired to do that tonight.

Lalita hasn't learned to talk yet, so she cannot adequately express her disgust at being held prisoner in the cloud of green funk.

Seriously, Theo, take a damn shower sometime will you?

"OMG!OMG!OMG!"

"Mom, it's just labor. Sheesh."

The overjoyed parents (you can tell by Sitara's expression) bring home a son this time. His name is Dhanvin, which means Archer in Sanskrit.

Chapter 24: She Lives Romance

No, there will absolutely be no drowning until you've passed your genes on, Timothy. Step away from the pool, now.

Timothy spent the night, but despite the exhaustion thoughtbubble that kept cropping up, he refused to sleep. He just kept on swimming and diving until dawn, when he got the drowning distress call.  Finally, he got out of the pool and went home.

The Leader of the Free World plays with a raccoon before heading out for his day's work of leading the free world.

Sim Nation pretty much runs itself, you know. I just hang around city hall chatting with my co-workers for a few hours every other day.

And I guess today's water cooler topic will be 'The raccoon that bit my finger this morning'?

Yup. Ouch.

Kesari ages up. She's already achieved her LTW of being super popular, and moves out with no unfulfilled wishes. She hasn't rolled a wish in days.

Doesn't that kind of suck, having no ambition for anything past high school popularity?

Meh. Being a grown up sucks.

Chelsea and Kiran currently have one grandson from Tamira and Jamie, and Kairavi and Josue are expecting. While they are happy about any grandchildren, their currently breeding daughters live in other households, and the daughter who lives with them is doing nothing about getting them a grandchild they'd have daily access to. Or helping them achieve their wishes for five grandchildren.

Sitara's wishes are pretty much all about writing and her career.

As they get close to becoming elders, and Sitara is halfway through theYA stage, Chelsea and Kiran start getting desperate, and decide to demonstrate to their daughter How Babies Are Made.

Engrossed in her writing, Sitara is completely oblivious to the music and giggling coming from her bed.

What!!?? The nitrates in these hotdogs are NOT organic??? *chokes*

Sitara does still roll wishes for Tim, mostly to kiss him. Once he's invited over, of course, he does not stop at just kissing. But my hopes for a risky woohoo pregnancy are dashed. I'm not sure if Twallan tweaked woohooer in the last update, but suddenly my Sims rarely choose risky for autonomous woohoo anymore (autonomous risky is enabled; I checked). 

As much as I prefer for Sitara to wish to marry Tim, I'm beginning to accept that it's not happening and that I'll have to use her free day for that. The official rules give you a free day once your heir has accrued 50k points, but I've increased that to 150k for my wishacy. Sitara at this point had about 135k. So, it was time to buckle down on wish fulfillment.

Sitara got a work opportunity to throw a party and invite Shelly Boyd-Lincoln, one of her co-workers. The party would also be a good opportunity to fulfill her wish for another point in Charisma.

Keari married her high school sweetheart, Kurtis, right after he aged up.

I was so tempted to keep him in his age up look. So. Tempted.

But, Kurtis will never build his criminal empire wearing pigtails and a goofy retro suit, so he gets a makeover.

Oh, who am I kidding, a super criminal boss in pigtails would be awesome. I just don't want my in-laws dressing like Sims.

I totally forgot to change anything except Kurtis' everyday wear while I was in CAS, so I had no idea what kind of sleepwear he was sporting until he and Kesari went up to her parents' bed for mandatory party woohoo. I'm done CASing, however, so Kurtis will wear that onesie forever.

"This bed appears to be in use."

"That's okay, we can woohoo in the bed in the next bedroom."

"Then we can have a steak."

"Thanks for coming to my party, grandpa Suchandra. I notice you didn't bring your child bride with you."

"Cindy isn't a child. She's a YA."

"As of what? Yesterday?"

Yes, Suchandra has remarried, to girl who just aged up to YA recently. One of Kesari's friends from high school. I invited the child bride to the party hoping to get a pic of her, but Suchandra came without her.

"Hey, you have the Hopeless Romantic trait, too? When did you get that?"

Yeah, not that it's done anything for Sitara. She gets the same amount of romantic wishes as ever, wishing to kiss or hug Tim every couple of days. Tim isn't at this party because he's at work. But Sitara does at least get her charisma skill point, and, ka-ching, fulfills a wish.

The garden will be ignored for days. Then it's a zerg swarm to tend to it.

Buy ping pong table. *wish fulfilled, 350 pts* 

Play ping pong with someone. *Calls Tim. Invites him to play. Wish fulfilled, 250 pts*

Gain a level in Jock status. *buys Jock status reward. Wish fulfilled, 750 pts*

Every stupid little wish gets fulfilled as we work toward getting that total up to 150k.

Overnight, she rolls repeated wishes for more Jock status, which I promptly fulfill by buying status with points. Eventually, she gets high enough to earn a new trait. I pick 'Family Oriented' hoping that she might actually wish to get married. But, as with giving her Hopeless Romantic, there's no change in her wish pattern. She does immediately start dreaming of baby shoes, however. It doesn't help.

The big wish at the moment as to write 15 novels. Sitara has change to writing Children's books, since she can crank them out faster, getting out several per day. Getting that lead to more writing wishes for big points, like writing 10 bestsellers and making X in royalties. So, Sitara is chained to that desk.

Hey, Kiran, Chelsea? Your demonstrations are useless. The only way this will happen is for Sitara to crank out the required books to achieve her wishes for points so I can force her to marry and try for baby.

"That's okay, we like woohooing in our daughter's bed."

Yes, and your daughters like woohooing in yours. Still, she's in the room...

"It's not like she notices."

Yeah, that's true. Sitara is pretty intent on getting Petals of Fire, her latest romance novel, out. She doesn't care what's happening in her bed, or have any wishes to use it in fruitful manner.

It took a couple of days after getting the Family Oriented trait before Sitara achieved the 150k point mark. I nursed the hope that she'd wish for marriage or children before I had to resort to using her free day, but it was still all about writing. 

So, the big day has arrived, Sitara's 'Free Day' begins at 1:18 pm on Tuesday, right after she gets home from work. She does roll a wish to watch the stars with Tim, but it's too early for that. She calls Tim and invites him over, and starts working the romantic moves.

When she's 'extremely irresistible', she pops the question.

Not wasting a precious moment of the free day, they get married right there. That's actually the spot where Kiran and Chelsea got married. Someday, maybe, I will have a real wedding with a party in this legacy. But not today.

I did consider for a moment stopping at engagement and hoping Sitara would wish to marry Tim later. But, I don't trust this girl to do that, so I'm using the free day to its fullest.

Of course, because I'm a crazy cat lady, I had to zoom over to see what CC, Tim's cat, now our cat, is doing as soon as Tim got married in. CC has a boyfriend, Twink Roush. I love that SP sets up inactive pets in relationships. However, after the fiasco that is my wishacy in DV, I'm never breeding pets in a wishacy again. Sorry, CC.

Okay, back to free day with the newlyweds. Make baby nao!

*Chimes*

And there was much rejoicing.

And it's a good thing I did get everything I needed done in the free day, because being a newlywed has done nothing for Sitara's wishes. She still is focused on writing, she wants 20 bestsellers now, and 15k in weekly royalties.

Tim has the unfortunate LTW for One Sim Band, to master every instrument. He's gotten pretty skilled in guitar and piano, but has never touched drums or bass. That LTW takes a lot of skill grinding starting as early as possible; Tim is 5 days to Adult and can only skill when he wishes for it, so this is just not happening. So, he's hoping to earn the 10k needed t change his LTW. Probably for the music career one, since he's up to level 5 of that and has a shot at it.

Sitara gets up from her writing briefly to change into maternity wear. Then, it's right back to it. Her new preferred genre is romance. Because, obviously, she lives romance.

We'll end this chapter with a few random shots:

Josue dropped by with his and Kairavi's daughter, Marlena.

Chelsea retuning her aura. CC, who has the Skittish trait, hides under the couch.

By now, Kamala, Alvaro, Suresh and Lourdes are all elders. Kiran and Chelsea will age up very soon.

Both Sitara and Tim rolled wishes to have a girl. It may be too late, but I put Sitara on the watermelon diet, anyway.