Growing Pains, part II

Poor Embla was just not very happy teen or adult. (And that downward-turned mouth made her look like she was constantly sulking.) She was always at least one step behind Ask, often two or three. She skilled more slowly than he did; she wasn't chosen as heir; she didn't have a significant other; her aspiration was always lower; her job required creativity while his didn't, so when they became adults he got insta-promoted to level six, she got a measly promotion to level two.



They both had the fear of being uneducated, and the want to grow up well. For Ask, who was platinum when growing up, that evened out to low green. Embla only reached gold, so she ended up in the red.

Despite this, the twins were very close - and even though Embla was too busy having a breakdown to notice, Ask did worry about her even as he was falling in love with Fifi.



Well, sort of.

(Notice they took a stab at color coordinating their clothes? Yeah, not exactly a success, but they did try.)



Ask did slow down shortly after that, though, mainly because after the first couple of days, he never rolled any of those easily fulfilled wants for his wife or child. Teach Thor to walk, talk, and go potty? Nope. That frequent knowledge sim want to woohoo in bed? Nope. Talk to or flirt with his two-bolt wife? Nope. He'd maxed all skills except creativity as a teen, and either Embla or Fifi was always writing a novel, since they both needed creativity for their jobs, which meant it was very hard to get his aspiration up. (I'd put Fifi into Music after she topped Medical - this was before Pinstar ruled that only the sim who actually lifted Music could suppress Artist.) For a while, it looked like Embla was going to catch up with him... but then I managed to get him platinum, and it was just a matter of having him meditate between promotions. Embla couldn't afford to do that, since she still had lots of creativity points to earn for her job.



Poor little Thor got the worst features from both parents - Fifi's nose and Ask's mouth.Let's just say it's not a very good combination... He's also a Scorpio, and my first mean Ragnarok. Very mean.


Randomness:



Did you know Goopy offers classes in how to melt in with your surroundings?



Uhh, what? I have no idea what's going on here, but I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that glare...

Growing Pains

Have you ever had a dream that grew so strong, it just about took over your whole life? Maybe it wasn't realistic, maybe you knew it was all but impossible, but you couldn't stop thinking about it. If only you could get what you wanted, you felt sure that everything else in your life would work itself out. You'd think about it all the time, you'd lie awake at night trying to figure out a way to make it happen, and if you did manage to fall asleep you'd dream about it. Have you ever felt that way about something?

I did. I wanted to go to college.

Believe me, I know how that sounds. I mean, we're living in a world where nothing grows and the "sun" doesn't shine, where you can't leave your home without risking your life, where the mob demands weekly payments or they'll hurt your loved ones, where nothing works like my parents say it used to. And I obsess about college? Well, I wanted to go. I wanted to learn. I wanted to have intellectually stimulating debates with people outside my own family, I wanted to meet new people, I wanted to learn!



When I finally had to face the fact that it wasn't going to happen, I fell apart. I literally collapsed into a blubbering heap on the floor. Not that anyone really noticed; my brother, my own twin, was too busy drooling over the wife-to-be our mother picked for him.



I really, really don't get what he sees in her. She's completely self-centered, always going on and on about herself. Bragging to my mother about how she purified the water - my mother, who single-handedly restored the school system! What's a shower compared to an education?



And she has no sense of tact, either.



Ask doesn't seem to realize it, though. In his eyes, she's perfect. He was barely of legal age before they were married and she got herself knocked up. And this woman brags about having reinvented contraceptives? She sure didn't use them herself! Doing anything to hold on to my brother, don't think I can't see that.



Having a nephew is kinda neat, though. (If only he'd had anyone else for a mother...) Ask adores him, that's for sure. The kid has red hair, like mom did before hers turned grey, and Ask said with red hair there was only one possible name for the boy - Thor.

He's been listening to too many of Mom's stories.



I don't get how someone as smart as Ask is - well, he's book smart, if not people smart - can take every word Mom says at face value. And he's supposed to be a scientist! Seriously, the world is the way it is because some gods died? That's not a very scientific approach. Especially since none of Mom's stories ever mention a god in charge of things like phones and computers; yet those stopped working when everything else did. Why is that, huh? If that wasn't because of the gods, why should the rest be? I figure it's more likely to have been some kind of tangible disaster that set it all off. Maybe a huge volcano erupted, or one of those "meteor" things crashed into the earth.



Either way, I'm determined to find a way to make them work again. I spend just about every waking minute at our old computer, trying to discover the secret to unlock it. There must be one!



The older Thor gets, the more I like that kid. He doesn't buy into his mother's supposed wonderfulness. Out of the mouths of babes... Or rather, it's what won't come out of his mouth! Ha!



I guess I should say something about my other brother, Tyr, but I can't really think of anything. He's just so easy-going, everybody loves him. The only time he ever complains is when he wants to call one of his many friends, and the phone's not working. Don't worry, kid, I'm on it.



He doesn't always know his own strength, though. He doesn't seem to realize Dad's not as young as he used to be. That, and Tyr's been building up a lot of strength lately. It's hard to picture my kid brother in the military - that little dreamer! - but he says he likes it.

We're all getting older. Dad's an elder now, Tyr is old enough to hold down a part time job, and little Thor is about to start school.



On Thor's birthday, Ask came home from work with this incredibly proud look on his face. He had some news, he said, a birthday present for his son. First he ran us all out of the living room, so he could do something in there in secret, and then we all gathered there when he asked us to. He struck a dramatic pose, said: "Let there be light!" and flipped a switch.



And there was light.

(Show-off.)

Questions to Ask, part II

Tyr Ragnarok was born just after his father had lifted the culinary restrictions, so he was the first baby in the family who got a birthday cake when he turned toddler, and who never had to go hungry. Yes, Ask was blue from cold. Maybe Saga's screams when she was in labor scared him so much he was afraid to go inside. But hey, culinary is very good for that...



Hot chocolate is a must when you're dealing with constant winter. Apparently you only have to make it once, and then that pot lasts forever? Weird. Anyway, Tyr always had to come inside for some hot cocoa halfway through building a snowman, because I didn't want to risk the social worker coming for him.



Fifi, that is not your color.

I call her Fifi because, well, I didn't want to call her by my own name. Too weird, especially with an apocalypse. Anyway, she was one promotion from Chief of Staff when I moved her in, and it took her a week to get it - just before Ask and Embla were due to become adults.



Poor Embla. She and Ask both had the stuck smart milk effect, but then about halfway through teenhood hers disappeared, and his stayed. As knowledge sims, they'd depended on gaining skill points for keeping their aspiration up, and now hers came much more slowly. To add insult to injury, she developed a crush on Alvin Futa, but then never saw him again, while her twin had a future spouse (who he liked a lot) arranged for him by their mother. No wonder she was feeling left out.



I wasted a couple of sips of the precious elixir hoping to get Saga a job in music, so she could suppress the artist restrictions and the kids could gain creativity points, but no go. (Which means Embla found it impossible to get promoted in her teen gamer job.) Shortly before Fifi topped medical, Saga turned elder.



Not to worry, though, Ratna still thinks she's the hottest thing since the sun disappeared behind thick clouds.



You know, when a townie kid comes home from school with one of your sims, and stays so long that a random townie comes by to pick them up... You kind of expect them to leave in the same direction, don't you?



Sims have interesting ideas about hanging out. Why does everyone have their back to Saga, who initiated the hangout? Is it just to keep Ratna trapped so he can't leave the table when he's done?

Quick tour of my apocalypse house, just because I can't think of anything else to say:



First floor: Kitchen and dining area. This is also where the noise makers are, the phone and the stereo. Not a single item is more than one tile, so I could easily change the layout if I had to.

The stove was bought after Ratna topped culinary, of course. The grill came in Fifi's inventory. I later moved it down underneath the house, to avoid traffic jams on the porch.



The second floor is the study area. Computer, chess table, bookcase and couch. The education bookcase has its back to the room until someone lifts adventurer. Two cribs, because Saga went and had twins...

By the way, the "Stairway to Heaven" stairs are a must in any apocalypse house. You can place one above the other, saving several tiles worth of space!



The third floor is for sleeping. Oh, and the bathrooms, one with a sink and the other with a toilet, so both can be used at the same time. Once medical was lifted, I remodelled a little; one 1x2 shower stall, and one 3x2 full bathroom.

As you can see, each floor has a wide open area. This is very useful for several purposes - hanging out with friends, 'playing with' toddler bunny heads, doing yoga, meditating... Not to mention that it helps to avoid traffic jams. It works for me.

And remember:



The Apocalypse is fun!

Questions to Ask

Yo, yo, yo, listen up!
Ask Ragnarok is the greatest guy in town
He'll cheer you up when you're feelin' down
So when nothin' else seems right in your life
just give me a call and... and...

Damn, I suck at this. Even my mom is a better rapper than I am, how's that for embarrassing? But then she's good at everything she does, pretty much. She and Dad set the bar kinda high for us kids, what with her getting the schools back on track, and him fixing the food problem. That's a lot to live up to, you know?



So my twin sister Embla and I, we study pretty much all the time. That's not so bad, really - I like learning new things. It's just that I'm not sure what I want to do with my life. Embla is. She says she wants to fix the phones so we can talk to our friends anytime we want, rather than just when we manage to get through. That's cool, but it just seems like there are so many bigger problems around here, you know?

I thought about becoming a doctor or engineer or something. There's a lot of diseases going around, even if we've been lucky and managed to avoid them, but still. And there's the water problem. Mom and Dad are always going on about how much they miss being able to take "showers" and "baths." I mentioned how maybe I could figure out a way to fix that, but then Mom said she has some friends who are already working on it, so I guess I'll do something else instead.



And Mom even asked one of those friends to move in with us. She says that with us taking care of everything else around the house, this friend of hers can focus that much more on her research, you know? Her name is Felicia Futa, but Mom calls her Fifi. I like that - Fifi. It's cool. She's cool. Not stuck up or anything, just real nice, and she knows how to have fun, too.



Embla doesn't seem to like her, though. I don't know why. But then Embla has been kinda grouchy lately about lots of things. She calls me blind, says I can't see what's right under my nose, but won't tell me what it is I'm not seeing. Like, hello, how does that make any sense? Then she mutters that nobody cares about her. I care! We all care! That doesn't mean she has to be the only friend I have in the world, does it?



I'm not gonna let my sister's moods stop me from being friends with someone I like, though. Mom is glad that Fifi and I are friends, anyway. She's always watching us when we're talking, with this smile on her face. Even when she's supposed to be meditating!



She's good with Tyr, too. Tyr is my baby brother, and he's, well, a little odd. I think he listened too much to Mom's stories when he was little. (Okay, littler.) On his birthday, he spent a lot of time staring at his hands, like he had to make sure they were still there. I figured it out later - the god he's named for lost his right hand to chain that big wolf in Mom's stories. I guess Tyr was worried that was going to happen to him too, or something. He's such a peabrain.



Like this time I found him sleeping on the couch. I woke him up and sent him up to bed, and he mumbled something about wanting to know what the flowers smelled like. I'd explained to him earlier that day that the pattern on the couch was something called "flowers" which used to grow before the snow came, and then he'd asked Mom what they were, and she went on about how wonderful flowers smelled. So Tyr lay down on the couch and tried to smell it! But ended up falling asleep, instead.



I guess I shouldn't make fun of him too much. Lots of the things Mom and Dad talk about sound strange to me, too. Like the sky. I get that there's something behind the overcast, but it's blue? Really? I can sort of imagine stars and stuff - like the walls in our bedroom, dark blue with little white dots - but this whole "sun" thing, that's just too much. A big bright ball in the sky, that lights up and warms up the whole world? Come on! How does that even work? It'd have to be huge!

I wonder if you could make a sun. Not a big one to light up the whole world, but maybe a little one, that we could put in the house? I gotta ask Mom and Dad if anyone's ever made something like that...



Ahhh... So this is what a "shower" feels like.

Hunger, part II

Ratna is a sweetheart, but not all that bright. He needed five or six more skill points to reach the top of his career, and it took him three weeks to get them.



First thing I had to do when he moved in was empty his inventory. The Portachugs were easy enough to dispose of - just drink them! Uhhh, Ratna, Saga, aren't you taking the whole "becoming one" thing a little too literally? I'm not even sure whether that was a part of your vows, since you held your own little ceremony on the sidewalk.

Two pianos and an aquarium had to remain in his inventory. The fish went up on the walls. Some pointless little items were given to Saga to hold. And the two champagne bottles are on the counters behind them.



Wasn't that a brilliant way to mess up my second Tuesday morning in a row?

They invited lots of people over to socialize with, and of course everybody gathered around the champagne bottles to toast the newlyweds. It's not easy to interact with a sim who's standing frozen to the spot with a champagne glass in their hand...



Especially not when the new bride is also dealing with morning sickness. Stupid of me not to have held off on the try for baby until that night! Oh well, live and learn.



Next mistake: I got Saga a job in Adventure while she was pregnant. I figured she could earn a Jumbok, which could then be sent to college once someone else lifted Adventurer. Sheesh, as if I couldn't have anyone do that at any time. Instead, she literally ran off to work minutes after giving birth to twins.



And poor Ratna, who was supposed to have been at work at 2 pm, had to wait until she returned home - after dark - to go. Fortunately he had built up a solid enough standing with his employer that they didn't mind, especially since he was also in platinum from the birth of the twins.

I had Saga quit her job after that. The twins needed her, Ratna needed more time for skilling, and she'd earned the Jumbok anyway.



They're good parents for the most part, if you're willing to overlook the occasional lecture for dirtied diapers.



By the time the third Tuesday rolled around, I managed not to mess things up for once. All visitors were locked into playing with the toddlers - with the added bonus of getting on their contact lists - while Saga built up relationship points with them one at a time.



One of them took a special interest in Ask, it seems... Hmm, she's high in medical, pretty, and has a recessive hair color to boot... *Takes notes.* If only her name wasn't Felicia. It's gotta be weird to put a sim with your own name through the apocalypse.



"Is nobody going to watch me grow up?"



Ahem. What Ratna doesn't know about won't hurt him. Actually, this was completely unplanned. Ramin here fell out of love with Saga when he caught her cheating back in college, but she still has feelings for him. When he came wandering by the lot, I figured she could clean out her inventory by giving him the odds and ends she was carrying around. Then, before I could react, they decided to flirt with each other. Stupid free will!



Ratna suspects nothing, of course. He's very happy to be married to Saga.



As for those kids, Ratna might think they're gorgeous, and they really don't look too bad from the front. It's the profile, though. They definitely have their father's mouth!



Ask is an Aquarius, with 7 neat points, 3 outgoing, 6 active, 8 playful, and 6 nice. He was always whining about being bored, even after his parents did their best to encourage him to be a little more serious. Embla grew sick of playing red hands with him all the time, and he had to build a lot of snowmen.

He's the heir, mostly because all the best potential spouses for this generation are females. I made him knowledge, since most of them are knowledge or family, and because the careers I want next are all possible knowledge LTWs. Ask's LTW is to be a doctor, but I don't want to wait that long, so he'll have to settle for marrying one.



Embla is a Virgo with 10 neat points, so she's always scrubbing something. She's also the most outgoing sim in the family, with 7 points, so it seems fitting she wants to be a Gamer. Then there are 6 active points, 0 playful like her mother, and 5 nice. She got to be knowledge, too. They both spend all their time skilling, skilling, and skilling some more.

You'll get to meet the baby of the family in the next update... ;)