Merchants of soul

Round 28: Winter 2028

last update/next update/Jack and Charlie's next update

Tate Benton is 58, Zelda is 53 and Jack and Charlie are both 16.
(Josie is 26, Troy is 25, Julia is 17, Audrey is 16, Camilla and Sophie are both 15)

Narrated by Charlie Benton

I'm so sick of my after school job. Lately, it seems like I'm calling in sick every other day and I'm amazed they haven't fired me yet. But I just can't take it any more. College can't come soon enough!

Thank God, Jack and I both got into Suffolk! We're so excited about living in the dorms and having some independence.

I think Mum is getting depressed about us leaving home. She listens to us talk about it and she always looks so sad.

We've both tried telling her that we'll come and see her and Dad as often as we can and that four years isn't really that long, in the grand scheme of things.

She'll get a ton of time to actually concentrate on her writing without Jack and me bugging her all day as well.

Mum says she has plenty of time to herself already. Dad's at the restaurant until quite late sometimes and she likes having us boys around. She's proud of us; she's just getting sentimental about her "babies" leaving the nest.

I feel like the pressure is really on with university. Dad went, and made a lot of money as a result. Josie graduated with a 4.0 and then went on to med school.

I don't want to get Dad's hopes up, because I'm really not planning on anything that illustrious. I'm just planning on getting my degree and getting out of there.

Dad's just so psyched that we're going though. All three kids as university graduates - he really loves the idea of that.

Josie and Troy's wedding will be happening well before Jack and I graduate though and that's the main topic of conversation right now.

The wedding will be here at the house and that's all Josie is letting Mum and Dad pay for, no matter how much they protest. They wanted to buy Josie and Troy a house! I'd have a hard time saying no to that!

Josie did though. They want to make their own way. That's the main reason they haven't set a date yet. They want a place to live first.

In other news, Julia Gray is still going a bit stalkery with Jack. She's so mad at him still and it must have been a year since they broke up. She's always hanging around outside our house, kicking over the bins and stealing the newspaper.

Jack is very much over Julia and spends most of his free time with Sophie these days. She had a crush on him for a long time but they only started going out last year.

So far, they seem like they're doing pretty well. They're pretty into each other, if the amount of time they spent making out on the couch is any indication.

I really miss the times when Jack and I would hang out with Audrey together though. It hasn't been quite the same since Audrey and I started dating and it didn't really improve when we broke up.

It's so hard to know what Jack's thinking. He never really admitted to me that he had a thing for Audrey, even after it was obvious so I don't know what's going through his mind right now. We'll likely all end up in the same dorm together when we start at Suffolk, so maybe things between us will get better then.

I hope so, anyway. We've been friends with Audrey for so long and I hate all this awkwardness.

I was pretty gutted when Audrey broke up with me but I've been dating Camilla Sitko for a little while now.

Mum really likes her too. She practically holds Camilla hostage when she comes over, wanting to talk to her about school, her job, her family and anything else that pops into her head.

Eventually, she goes back to her writing!

On our first date, I actually wasn't even sure Camilla liked me much at all.

In that way, anyway. She talked to me and smile and everything but she was really reluctant to let me touch her, even hold her hand.

I soon figured out what that was about. Her grandpa was keeping an eye on us. I think he thought he was being subtle but it wasn't long before I saw him.

Camilla came home from school with me a few days later, when I asked her out again. She said yes, and I prayed that her grandfather would stay away this time!

He did, luckily, and our second date was much more successful than our first.

Camilla's more of an arty type than me but she knows a lot about sports too, because almost her entire family is sports mad.

So we have heaps to talk about and heaps of stuff we can do together.

And she is really gorgeous, to top it all off. I guess we still don't know each other all that well but I really like her.

Extras:
I've been playing around with a couple of new mods and I think I like them!

First is tongues! You can probably see it better if you open up the full size version of this picture. They appear under accessories and have appropriate tool tips for easy identification, thank God! There is a pierced and unpierced version (all the Sims in this update are using the unpierced versions) and are for teens through elder. I'm still getting used to them, but I like them so far.

Also, the posing parts posebox from MTS! Charlie is actually talking on the phone here - he's not just posed with a phone prop. I was very surprised when he did this autonomously. But I mainly love it because it means my Sims can look a little less samey and a bit more natural when they're sitting down talking.

Notes:

• Title is from Merchants of Soul by Spoon.
• Both boys will be heading to college with Audrey in 2030 - Jack got 4 scholarships and Charlie got 5.
• Charlie had the want to go on a date, so I just randomly chose a girl who he had chemistry with who was not Audrey. ;) That ended up being Camilla but they seem to like each other a lot, so I'm letting them go steady. The chemistry is not mind-blowing at all but we all know that's not the only consideration for Sims' best matches (at least for me!)
• This is probably amusing to nobody but me but I got a giggle out of the fact that I now have a couple named Charles and Camilla. Does that mean anything at all to people outside the Commonwealth? I have no idea how much non-Commonwealthers know about the British royal family.