5.5 Bittersweet

Question: What’s the longest you guys have ever played for in one sitting? I’m too ashamed to admit mine, but let’s just say I’ve been putting in almost full days lately, and it’s taking its toll. I moved some stuff into my RL apartment today, and when my cat immediately started nosing around the new trash can, I saw “Check Out New Object” hovering in his action queue. Then I sat down with a glass of water and asked myself what life is.

Of course, it doesn’t help that when I’m not playing, I’m writing posts or editing screenshots or formatting blogs. But hey, you gotta live control fake people’s lives while you’re young!

Alternatively, you can live while you’re old like Lira. She seems to have really come into her own since she hit elderhood, and more specifically, since she embalmed herself in the pursuit of eternal youth.

Lira: Stupid bunny rabbit! I wanted an alien!

Still pining after Teqeq?

Lira: Who is Teqeq?

5.4 Accidentally on Purpose

I’ve been having a crisis lately about writing believable characters. I know — this is The Sims, and no one expects it to be an actual simulation of life. However, my ambitions do involve someday writing for a living, and I like to think that this is helping me toward that goal in some way. Is it really very helpful if I keep writing caricature morons with no emotional drive? Can anyone actually relate to this family?

Then, I started watching Arrested Development while editing my screenshots. (Kind of relevant if you consider it’s where Gobias Koffi and the Never Nude trait were born.) Gob was putting on a magic show to The Final Countdown and I thought never mind, this stuff actually sells. The Bluths could be the Langurds’ role models. It’s not like we’ve reached that level of weird, right?

Frieda: I will marry and outlive everyone until I inherit the entire earth! *thunderclap*

Okay, thanks for the reality check.

5.3 Procrastinate Now

Ah, my philosophy of life! I’m afraid I’ve made the title scheme painfully obvious for this generation, but I can’t ALWAYS be cryptic. Or should I say… explicitly ambiguous? 😉

Last time, stuff happened! Oh, you want specifics? Erm… I wrote that post yesterday and already, all I remember is that a baby was born.

Little Omen the alien genius! Behold the first green-on-green-on-green shot of him, and let it burn into your retinas because it will likely be the last.

Fun fact: I haven’t caught him with his eyes open yet. It’s because he’s secretly Brock from Pokémon.

5.2 Trouble in Paradise

Another chapter so soon?! (You ask in distress.) I’m sorry. I should probably leave a courtesy buffer or something but sometimes the words just keep flowing, y’know?

Last time, Gumby fell in love with Frieda Salas, an evil ghost who wants to kill him and steal his money. Lira had tea with her SimBots and lamented the curse of aging. Mandrake broke my game, and Boa tried in vain to die by jelly bean. I know now that that can’t happen, but for the sake of continuity and my pride I’m going to pretend I am none the wiser.

(Pretend not to be wise? How ever shall I do that?)

Gumby’s second date with Frieda was a raging and unreasonable success. I know the shot I gave you last chapter was a little stingy, so here’s a better look at her face.

Frieda: So hypothetically, what colour would you want your ghost to be?

Gumby: I don’t know. Why?

Frieda: Oh, no reason.

For anyone wondering, this is her real, EA-given colouring. All of the Midnight Hollow ghosts seem to look like this underneath, i.e. so white they must have been genetically engineered by Hitler himself.

5.1 The Living Dead

Guess who’s back, bitches!

(Using that phrase purely for power-drama. I think very highly of you all.)

To start with, thank you for your moral support/commiseration/technical advice on that very articulate Error 12 post. I’m happy to announce that WE ARE IN THE CLEAR! And in fact, I’ve nearly finished playing Gumby’s generation, so now comes a crapload of writing. Enjoy!

 

The fate of the family is now rests on… a guy who still creeps around like a grounded teenager.

Gumby: I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Polly.

Polly: Don’t tell me what to do! Go to your room!

Gumby: Okay.

4.13 Oh Boy, That Tickles!

(NOTE: Chapter 4.12 went up less than 24 hours ago, so make sure you don’t skip over it by mistake! I only say this because back-to-back posts are unheard of for me, so I wouldn’t blame you for clicking the first post you see in the Reader Feed. :P)

Goodness gracious, I just looked through the screenshots for this chapter and we have a lot to get through. Don’t scroll ahead because some of it is big and game-changing. If you do scroll ahead, you’re probably the kind of person who skipped to the end of Harry Potter Six, so kindly let me know to un-friend you. What do you mean there’s no friend system on WordPress? The sentiment is there, okay? I will un-friend you in my heart.

But not actually because it’s your life, and this is a legacy for crying out loud, not Harry Potter.

Newsman: And finally, birdwatchers everywhere have reported that the nation’s owls have been behaving very unusually today. Do not be alarmed if a strange man in a cloak drops a scarred infant on your doorstep in the middle of the night.

Balboa: Malissa, dear — what’s the name of your nephew again?

Malissa: Gumby. Nasty, common name if you ask me.

(Now exiting the parallel universe where “Gumby” is a common name.)

4.12 My Baby All Gone

Lt. Surge: Greetings, scum. As the master of this household, I have taken over narration duties for the time being. The coup was easy; Sam is a creature of very little willpower, known to melt in the presence of cats. She lets us sleep in her clean laundry and chew on her headphone cords because she doesn’t have the heart to tell us no. All I had to do was sit up here and make this face, and she immediately bumped my picture to the top of the chapter. Pathetic.

4.11 I Am Mrs. Nesbitt

You know how when people live together, their cycles sync up? Apparently, I’ve been “living” with the Langurds for too long, because I’m experiencing a severe case of simulative synchrony. (Why yes, I coined that term myself just now.)

Just like Boa, Lira, and the rest, your Director of Shenanigans is now officially a Gryffindor graduate! Discovery: the door clusterfuck is a myth. In fact, the whole process was highly streamlined and efficient and the worst nightmare of a socially awkward person. Why am I telling you guys this? I’m pretty sure 80% of my readership is older and more life-experienced than I am. Which is an interesting story, but seeing as I haven’t finished this one…

4.4 Make Him Better or Get the Buzzer

Well, considering how confident I was last chapter in my hermity caveman ways, a lot has actually happened since I put that post out. I went on a forest adventure, tried to move into my new place but failed, and had a job interview. Oh, and I got my first tattoo! Basically, I’m still an unemployed deadbeat but I’m an unemployed deadbeat who dipped one toe in the waters of real life for half a second. Yay, me!

Speaking of unemployed deadbeats, it occurred to me that the last Langurd to hold a steady job was… well, Morgana, and I had no part in her getting or keeping that job. Three generations of dicking around later, our fortunes are dwindling and I’ve decided to crack down on my heirs, start funnelling them down the narrow road of career society. Just kidding, but I’m accepting that we won’t last forever on book royalties and broken space rocks. Someone’s gotta put food on the table and all that.

Raggedy: You gonna finish that?

Lira: Yes.

4.2 There’s a Snake in My Boot!

Howdy, partner!  No, actually, I refuse to start a chapter that way even in jest. Instead, let me start it by saying I BOUGHT THE SIMS 4! It was on for half price, and—having over-budgeted for groceries for the year—I thought I would treat myself. You know, to make up for those nights when I had a microwaved potato and some vanilla frosting for dinner. I made one sim, put her in a lot, then got bored and quit. But that’s okay, because my attention span right now is about as broad as a WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TIME, I have to go watch Game of Thrones.

In the Land of Langurds, Dax’s death reminded me that Katana is no spring chicken herself—nor, for that matter, is she a seasoned chicken traveler as she set out to become so long ago. For shame. You might say that Old Peabrain gave us the little push we needed to seek greatness. However, he also gave us a bunch of shitty moodlets to hinder the pursuit of said greatness.

But you know, sometimes the first stage of grief is “press a button and magically get over it.”

Katana: Wow, I’m not sad anymore. Oh wait… I never was.