Great gains, great pains…

She finally did it. Casey, our long-suffering founder, had topped her career.

My Sims, of course, were thrilled about this momentous occasion.

“Dad, would you get off your Ecto-Phone and play chess?!”

“No, I’m totally doing my career tasks and not browsing the internet!”

“No, Mom, that’s definitely not how you could best wash a dish.”

I love how annoyed with her family Adele is.

“Could you all congregate somewhere else?! I need to pee!”

How many dishes does this family need to wash?!

“Hello ma’am, I’m here on behalf of the ‘Keep Boobs Free’ Foundation and I must say, yours look fine.”

Okay, Bitter Ex, I get it, you like Casey.

Too bad Casey doesn’t return the favour.

“But… But you like evil too!”
“Ugh, I really don’t, it was just a job.”

Meanwhile, upstairs…

“Disco sparkles!”

“And on behalf of the ‘Keep Boobs Free’ Foundation… HA!”

Poor Izaiah. With him being so close to unlocking Secret Agent and thus allowing people to move out, he’s trapped at the chess table.

Adele meanwhile is imparting important knowledge to Heidi.

“So don’t get married. EVER.”

“So um, Izaiah, are you glued to the chair or something?”
“Yes. Send help.”

Instead, Raj shows up and lectures him about children.

“Two is NOT enough for this challenge! You need three, at least!”
“Back off, Dad!”

“Ah, yes, I made it. Mafia boss. Here on my throne–“

You mean your bed.

“MY THRONE…”

Ah, yes, overlooking her mighty kingdom of Raj floating the computer.

And boobs. Can’t forget the boobs. Though I’m not sure what is freaking Carlee out so badly.

“Gah! What is that?! Step away from my child!”

“Oooooh, shiny!”

And then she fled the house with the shiny, never to be seen again.

Look, Raven, you’ve spent twelve hours wandering the house being smelly and depressed. Sinks exist, you know.

“Nope. Gotta ennui.”

“Here, Adele, a random present from a random person.”
“Gosh, thanks, no way that could be suspicious!”

She’s topless, and she’s on a mission toward the werewolf.

Though really, we constantly get random-ass people showing up at the house.

Oh look, Raven cleaned up and joined the local depressive club!

“Woe.”
“WOE.”
“WOE!!”

“Well I don’t think she’s cleaned up!”

Nobody asked you, Random Fabulous Dude.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, we befriend the weirdos in the neighbourhood.

“Hey Adele! I glued my own eye shut!”

We also get dragged into random conversations, though it’s handy from a Charisma perspective. Gotta love Nalani’s complete lack of outer wear.

“It’s fine! It’s sunny out!”

“So everyone ignores me except for the weird one-eyed kid, and random strangers are always showing up and barging in, and now tentacles are coming out of my bed.”

You could look just a LITTLE grateful, Adele. God I hate the monster under the bed.

“Look, at this point, I’d be fine with another nuclear explosion. Maybe then I could experience something other than this chessboard.”

Finally. I guess we can let you leave this room, now.

“Oh thank plumbob.”

Me? Pushing my Sims hard? Of course I am. It’s the apocalypse challenge. Not my fault he decided another two feet to the bed was too much.

Well at least people can’t break the rules if Carlee is stuck at the computer writing.

I swear Katarina gets to sleep sometimes.

“She lies! I punch things 24 hours a day! HELP!”

Meanwhile, poor Heidi gets interaction from Adele and that’s about it. Probably a bit concerning that Adele is building a sand cowplant but I’m sure it’s fine.

I had to take this screenshot because what the hell, Izaiah. You’re at work. How are you having work withdrawals at work?

This is why promotions take so long, ugh.

But who needs promotions when you can fart fruit symbols?

Girl, you aren’t even the one doing the homework. Let’s calm down.

The other smelly twin comes home with another promotion! Once she unlocks Bodybuilder, we’ll be able to move things greater than 2 spaces, and move things in and out of family inventory. Both things we desperately need, even more than Katarina needs a shower.

Izaiah the loser, though? Decided to whine instead of get a promotion. Thanks, Izaiah.

“Oh god oh god oh god he’s approaching me.”

“Er, excuse me, Sims, could someone acknowledge me, ever?”

If you’re wondering about Casey, she’s still alive. She just spends her time glowering at the world and cleaning the house. Not bad things for a Sim to do.

It’s better than staring off into space when you could be training, Katarina.

Er. And then suddenly she’s fit. No really this was 15 seconds later. Magical six pack.

Meanwhile, if we really need those romance interactions…

… Then let’s complain that we can’t find the clitoris.

Sometimes townies in my neighbourhood glitch out and stop being able to move. They usually teleport away before they die, but until then, they hang out on the sidewalk or in the streets, getting stinky, tired, and hungry.

My game has issues.

But Izaiah doesn’t! Yes, wonder boy can’t find the pleasure button but he could find the promotion to Diamond Agent! We can now visit community lots and move Sims out of the household!

Also I just realized that the icon is a watch. I’m sort of an idiot.

“So anyway, it all started when god poured a beaker of boiling water into a volcano, and now we live in a shack.”

Strange way to teach responsibility, Katarina, but okay then.

“Oh look, Heidi’s parents do interact with her!”

And so she turned into Waldo.

Great.

Not to worry, her and Adele are still BFFs.

Fucking monsters under the fucking bed. Adele refused to sleep, AGAIN. Luckily Raven had no issues.

“Oh no. It’s her again.”
“Just walk around her, dude, it’s fine.”
“No. She’ll just follow us until she corners us. Damn Apocalypse Sims!”

If you’re wondering if Carlee ever wears a shirt… No. She spends a ton of time in her PJs.

Katarina likes to sing a soulful melody before punching.

Then Carlee decided to ruin her chance for a promotion by going into labour. Thanks, jackass.

Then she pulled something magical by just… Appearing in this house? My Sims do this a lot. Something glitches and they show up wandering around at home, not clickable through the bottom panel. Sometimes I have to reset them to fix them.

Well whatever. Here’s Sidney.

“Gah, how am I suddenly at home when I’m already at home?!”

“Um, what happened here? Did I hear space and time warping?!”

Since Casey apparently plans to live forever, I let her get another job to see if we can get her some aspiration points. We can’t do anything with them, but it’s something to do.

So off she goes, painting in her own little world.

“I mean, it’s impressive, Heidi, but also a little concerning.”

Wow, Casey, such skill.

“So, anyway, we plan the heist tonight?”
“Absolutely. I’m wearing my most fabulous suit for the occasion.”

Ah, yes, just what the wizened cat-ear-wearing lady wants to hear about… Vampires drilling perfectly round holes into people’s neck.

I wasn’t kidding about being wizened. My game went “You know what, time to generate something completely mad”.

Er, did they drug her?

“Come–urk– on. Fight… Me…”

“What the fuck is with this house?! I can’t even get any sleep because my brother just has to keeping having shrieking brats with that Caliente, but do they take care of them?!”

“So, um, want to play?”
“No. I want to wear my fabulous hat and judge you.”
“Great, but you’re wearing swim shorts with a bowler hat so can’t say you have a right to judge.”

Meanwhile, it’s time for Adele to become a teen, but only after circling the table.

And she grew up with transgender earrings intact. That’s the point at which I went okay, girl, I get the hint. I have a mod that allows you to randomize gender and orientation, or select it yourself, and it’s designed to work with/expand upon EA’s half-assed system. It even has stuff like surgery and voice therapy, but since we haven’t unlocked Journalist yet, I figured we couldn’t go there yet.

Here’s an example of what the mod does. I think I had it randomly generate these and boom, transgender woman. I can roll with that!

The mod is here for those interested.

Here’s some of the options you get. Again, since I couldn’t go for medical options, and also couldn’t change clothing, I went with pronouns and name. This upped Retail Employee in my unlock list though.

Not to be outdone, Sidney left his bassinet in a poof of wood smoke.

If you’re wondering if Izaiah ever looks happy, no. No he does not.

Meanwhile, Casey is still kicking, and is getting promotions as the oldest soldier ever. You take what you can get in an apocalypse.

Look who finally fucking bothered with a promotion! We might be able to buy showers in the next century.

Meanwhile, Heidi tries to find a way out of this family, one way or another. Get in the house, you weirdo.

And we leave Sidney sleeping on a pile of garbage. Great.

 

Oh the irritation I felt when THIS came up. As a writer myself, I’ve struggled with writer’s block for a long time, but I’m also not a Sim trying to unlock restriction in an apocalypse, you know? Thanks, EA.

One way or another, Carlee will get charisma. No matter how many Sims she must traumatize.

THERE, fucking hell. Note how she tried her best to be grumpy and unable to work. Get over your heartburn or whatever and unlock Author!

Instead, she stripped and fled home, never to be seen again.

“Whoa, girl, slow down there. Let me see that beautiful face in just the right angle…”
“Dude I just want to go home.”

Still alive. Still working on her aspiration.

Your child might need help if they’re mopping the middle of the road.

“Look, I get paid to keep the streets spotless. It’s every Sim for themselves out here.”

A lot of my Sims keep rolling Wellness aspiration wants, which, fair enough in an apocalypse. Only problem is this tiny pillow takes up an UNGODLY amount of room for its size.

Also Sidney kept rudely interrupting by pooping his diaper like a normal infant. How dare he.

I got this little bar because it fits under the stairs and I figured Adele could use it for Mixology, as that is the career I have chosen for her. Unfortunately for us, you don’t really gain Mixology skill from it. What a bummer.

So I chucked it in inventory and replaced it with this cheapo bar.

You turned like 40, you brat. Get over it.

And never mind she was bored and depressed, Katarina FINALLY maxes Fitness.

Too bad we abandoned the kid.

Could someone put Sidney in a real bed, maybe.

“And now I shall play the violin for my family’s many woes.”

And what woes they are! Trash! Yelling! Furniture! Mystery cuboids!

Honestly this girl looks like a reject from a doll shop.

But enough of that. Let’s get Sidney to a semi-useful state.

Sidney has this permanent judgmental look on his face. I think it is from Carlee but something about his facial features really exaggerates it.

So sometimes, if I brought my Sims somewhere and go back home, we’ll have an ungodly amount of toddlers just… Summoned on the sidewalk. At least this time around it included a few adults but still, where did you all come from?

“Assimilate. ASSIMILATE.”

“Well whatever, my mood might suck but I’m going to march along happily!”

Is there some evil device mass-aging Sims or something? We’ve got the wizened doll reject, now the grey-haired Teen with a grandpa sweater and cane…

That he uses to clock Adele.

“I was just sighing hi!”

Meanwhile, according to the LGBTQIA mod I shared, Katarina wants to kiss her sister-in-law because Katarina is aromantic.

I’m aromantic and I don’t want to kiss family members’ spouses but hey.

Good god, Sidney, could you be any more dramatic?

“No fwash cawds! No!”

No, this is not the same picture. Apparently Raven just likes jogging nude. I don’t have normal Sims.

Case in point, Casey here, having a showdown with a wood project.

But not as much of a showdown as my game, which as you can see, thinks that the painting on the wall is in fact in her inventory and not allowed on a wall.

You’re probably thinking “Maybe you have too many mods” but I can assure you, my Sims games have always been this weird even before I knew about mods.

“Food! Get your food!”
“Forget food, HI RANDOM STRANGER!”

“So, um, wanna make babies with me?”

Er, sorry we depressed you, Venessa?

“What a bunch of pricks, making me phase through matter to get around them!”

Or you could have gone the other way.

But nevermind her, we got a first kiss, and not from her sister-in-law!

“You’d think these people would have homes, but no…”

Well look who will get a new home, speaking of! Raven has unlocked Author, which allows us to order books and go to libraries, thus making up for my sin of buying a book to get Raj to the top of Chef. Well done, Raven.

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And that’s where we’ll leave off because honestly I started this post days ago and then never got back to it, so let’s just publish and move on. Next time: will Raven move out? Will Carlee ever unlock her stupid career? Will my game ever stop being weird? Find out next time. Cheers.