Black Sunday Sims: Transition
When last we saw our intrepid heroes* of Black Sunday, they had fled the nasty, zombie-filled dimension of Fortea (the setting of The Secret World), which they had landed in following the destruction of Prime (the setting of City of Heroes/City of Villains).
All this interdimensional travel might seem excessive, but dimensional portals were a fact of life in Prime, and two of the team members had arrived from other dimensions in the first place (one intentionally, using Science!; the other accidentally, through a religious magic ritual gone wrong), so it's beginning to seem routine.
Everyone looks different -- a little or a lot -- in each new dimension, so let's meet the cast. Left to right, we've got evil genocidal robot Pretty Hatemachine; hipster mad scientist Johnny Pandemic; perpetually nervous spellcaster Alatan; and supremely self-confident future Mob boss Crash Capello, who looks unusually friendly and cheerful here.
*(Okay, they were on the villains side in City of Heroes/City of Villains; this is one time "hero" causes confusion as a synonym for "protagonist.")
Just for fun, a glimpse of my custom sims bin. That's right, these four are the only downloaded sims I have in Sims 3. Johnny Pandemic is courtesy of laridian, who also kindly shared Tolwynn's Pretty Hatemachine, and an appropriately-dressed version of my own sim Alatan (my game was crashing if I changed clothes in Create-A-Sim; that seems to be fixed, but why mess with a good thing?). Crash Capello is courtesy of iceraptoress.
A glance at all their personalities. Looks like they all went to the School for the Gifted together, except Alatan, who was... shipped off to military school? Okay, that sort of makes sense.
Black Sunday regards their new home/base with studied neutrality. Crash thinks it's a dump; to the others, it's just a place to stay for a while. (And it's about as nice a place as Alatan would be comfortable in, in any case.)
It came with some basic furnishings. Not the best layout; some wasted space in that foyer, and the only bedroom is upstairs. There was a small 2-bedroom in their price range, but this was more centrally located, so they'll make do.
While most of them are thinking about each other, PHM is focused on her desired criminal career. (Her LTW is to become the Empress of Evil, because I can't quite imagine her in any other role. Her canon life goal is the destruction of all life in the universe. Apparently that applies to every universe she visits.)
Johnny immediately heads upstairs and tries to befriend Alatan by pummeling her with a pillow.
Crash tries the same tactic. Johnny looks left out.
Crash exits in a trail of feathers. "I'm going to find a job now. You kids have fun."
Johnny: "I think this might be the right climate for growing carniflowers! Or something else interesting!"
Alatan: "I think you might be something else interesting."
"What about you?" Johnny asks. "Aren't you interesting too?"
Keep in mind, no one on this team is romantically involved with anyone else on the team, in canon. In fact, I'm not sure any of them is even attracted to any of the others.
But Sims have more free will than fiction characters, at least in the romance department.
"I'm a witch," Alatan says. Johnny agree that's pretty interesting, if only because he didn't know that was possible in this world.
I'd like to know how it is that the Sim with the Shy trait is the first to express an interest. They're not even friends yet.
Alatan's not the only one Johnny finds interesting, though.
...Really not the only one he's interested in. O.O
...Okay, I confess: I snapped that image because it looked like Johnny was attracted to Crash, and thy amused me; but actually, he has that moodlet because one of the girls is right around the corner.
The thing Johnny's working on is an alchemy station, because alchemy has a lot in common with mad science, so mastering alchemy is his LTW in this game. It's a self-employed career, mixing and selling various potions.
Making a bad batch of elixir can have some ill effects, but Johnny keeps going anyway.
Crash found and "befriended" (read: captured) a bird early on. I meant to sell it, since it's worth nearly $1000 and would have increased their cash-on-hand by 50%, but then Crash started pulling it out of his inventory and being cute with it.
In canon, Crash has trouble expressing affection for other people. Animals are safer. In TSW he had a cat; in iceraptoress' Sims game he obsessed over his turtles; I guess here he gets to have a bird. (Jenn? You want to suggest a name for this feathered friend?)
These quickly became the most frequently seen idle animations for Crash and Alatan: "Play with Bird" and "Play with Magic," respectively. The latter is useful, since it builds magic skill. Nice.
Crash, bird on shoulder, has no problem telling a townie how awesome he is.
Johnny needed to get out of the house for a while, so I sent him to the park. There turned out to be a random ghost wandering around unsupervised.
There was also a minor celebrity playing guitar, and a paparazzi photographing her, and what exactly is that paparazzi wearing? (Johnny's in the background, picking wildflowers).
I guess this explains why we haven't seen much of PHM this update. When she wasn't working (and she's an ambitious workaholic, so she's nearly always working), she's been on her phone. Maybe she's lonely for other artificial life forms?
Alatan, meanwhile, has been quietly practicing her magic, and can now conjure an apple at will. At first they were always poison apples, but now they're edible. She autonomously does this so often her inventor gets stuffed with apples. No one will starve with her around!
So that would be, what, conjuring? If she's creating something that wasn't there? And this would be transmutation, because she turned that apple into a crawdad in a fish bowl. Doesn't she look pleased with herself? (She should. The fish bowls sell for about $80, plus what the crayfish can be sold for, and this household is still very strapped for cash.)
So Alatan's doing pretty well in this world, but apparently her job as a low-level fortune teller doesn't pay enough for her to afford shoes.
Or maybe it's supposed to be more mystical that way, or something. I dunno.
Johnny continues mixing potions and learning to make new ones. This one sounds alarming! At least it's only temporary, but that doesn't seem terribly comforting.
He's never actually made that potion, mind. He did decide to experiment with one he did make.
Its consequences were predictable.
Rather than send him straight to bed, I had him continue researching new alchemical formulae, to see if it would wear off.
Those consequences were also predictable.
PHM shows her dedication to her career by running to work. Barefoot. In the rain. But not uphill both ways!
Her work uniform's lack of shoes may have something to do with her disinclination to turn in stray money to the Organization.
I'd say it was also related to her desire to see her boss's ghost, but since her ultimate goal is to see everyone's ghost, I'm reluctant to read too much into this.
Coming home from work together (they're in the same career, though they'll eventually take different paths; at this point they're still at the same level, and yes, Crash's uniform includes shoes), Crash and PHM, uh, notice each other. Enthusiastically.
Speaking of unexpected and potentially inappropriate (but apparently unavoidable) attractions... While the career criminals sleep off the effects of their nocturnal work hours, I send the other two to the Summer Festival. Alatan looks charmingly bashful.
Well, Johnny seems to find it charming, anyway.
And that's as good a breaking point as any, so that's where I'll leave off this time. Next time: the summer festival, and oh so much more.
All this interdimensional travel might seem excessive, but dimensional portals were a fact of life in Prime, and two of the team members had arrived from other dimensions in the first place (one intentionally, using Science!; the other accidentally, through a religious magic ritual gone wrong), so it's beginning to seem routine.
Everyone looks different -- a little or a lot -- in each new dimension, so let's meet the cast. Left to right, we've got evil genocidal robot Pretty Hatemachine; hipster mad scientist Johnny Pandemic; perpetually nervous spellcaster Alatan; and supremely self-confident future Mob boss Crash Capello, who looks unusually friendly and cheerful here.
*(Okay, they were on the villains side in City of Heroes/City of Villains; this is one time "hero" causes confusion as a synonym for "protagonist.")
Just for fun, a glimpse of my custom sims bin. That's right, these four are the only downloaded sims I have in Sims 3. Johnny Pandemic is courtesy of laridian, who also kindly shared Tolwynn's Pretty Hatemachine, and an appropriately-dressed version of my own sim Alatan (my game was crashing if I changed clothes in Create-A-Sim; that seems to be fixed, but why mess with a good thing?). Crash Capello is courtesy of iceraptoress.
A glance at all their personalities. Looks like they all went to the School for the Gifted together, except Alatan, who was... shipped off to military school? Okay, that sort of makes sense.
Black Sunday regards their new home/base with studied neutrality. Crash thinks it's a dump; to the others, it's just a place to stay for a while. (And it's about as nice a place as Alatan would be comfortable in, in any case.)
It came with some basic furnishings. Not the best layout; some wasted space in that foyer, and the only bedroom is upstairs. There was a small 2-bedroom in their price range, but this was more centrally located, so they'll make do.
While most of them are thinking about each other, PHM is focused on her desired criminal career. (Her LTW is to become the Empress of Evil, because I can't quite imagine her in any other role. Her canon life goal is the destruction of all life in the universe. Apparently that applies to every universe she visits.)
Johnny immediately heads upstairs and tries to befriend Alatan by pummeling her with a pillow.
Crash tries the same tactic. Johnny looks left out.
Crash exits in a trail of feathers. "I'm going to find a job now. You kids have fun."
Johnny: "I think this might be the right climate for growing carniflowers! Or something else interesting!"
Alatan: "I think you might be something else interesting."
"What about you?" Johnny asks. "Aren't you interesting too?"
Keep in mind, no one on this team is romantically involved with anyone else on the team, in canon. In fact, I'm not sure any of them is even attracted to any of the others.
But Sims have more free will than fiction characters, at least in the romance department.
"I'm a witch," Alatan says. Johnny agree that's pretty interesting, if only because he didn't know that was possible in this world.
I'd like to know how it is that the Sim with the Shy trait is the first to express an interest. They're not even friends yet.
Alatan's not the only one Johnny finds interesting, though.
...Really not the only one he's interested in. O.O
...Okay, I confess: I snapped that image because it looked like Johnny was attracted to Crash, and thy amused me; but actually, he has that moodlet because one of the girls is right around the corner.
The thing Johnny's working on is an alchemy station, because alchemy has a lot in common with mad science, so mastering alchemy is his LTW in this game. It's a self-employed career, mixing and selling various potions.
Making a bad batch of elixir can have some ill effects, but Johnny keeps going anyway.
Crash found and "befriended" (read: captured) a bird early on. I meant to sell it, since it's worth nearly $1000 and would have increased their cash-on-hand by 50%, but then Crash started pulling it out of his inventory and being cute with it.
In canon, Crash has trouble expressing affection for other people. Animals are safer. In TSW he had a cat; in iceraptoress' Sims game he obsessed over his turtles; I guess here he gets to have a bird. (Jenn? You want to suggest a name for this feathered friend?)
These quickly became the most frequently seen idle animations for Crash and Alatan: "Play with Bird" and "Play with Magic," respectively. The latter is useful, since it builds magic skill. Nice.
Crash, bird on shoulder, has no problem telling a townie how awesome he is.
Johnny needed to get out of the house for a while, so I sent him to the park. There turned out to be a random ghost wandering around unsupervised.
There was also a minor celebrity playing guitar, and a paparazzi photographing her, and what exactly is that paparazzi wearing? (Johnny's in the background, picking wildflowers).
I guess this explains why we haven't seen much of PHM this update. When she wasn't working (and she's an ambitious workaholic, so she's nearly always working), she's been on her phone. Maybe she's lonely for other artificial life forms?
Alatan, meanwhile, has been quietly practicing her magic, and can now conjure an apple at will. At first they were always poison apples, but now they're edible. She autonomously does this so often her inventor gets stuffed with apples. No one will starve with her around!
So that would be, what, conjuring? If she's creating something that wasn't there? And this would be transmutation, because she turned that apple into a crawdad in a fish bowl. Doesn't she look pleased with herself? (She should. The fish bowls sell for about $80, plus what the crayfish can be sold for, and this household is still very strapped for cash.)
So Alatan's doing pretty well in this world, but apparently her job as a low-level fortune teller doesn't pay enough for her to afford shoes.
Or maybe it's supposed to be more mystical that way, or something. I dunno.
Johnny continues mixing potions and learning to make new ones. This one sounds alarming! At least it's only temporary, but that doesn't seem terribly comforting.
He's never actually made that potion, mind. He did decide to experiment with one he did make.
Its consequences were predictable.
Rather than send him straight to bed, I had him continue researching new alchemical formulae, to see if it would wear off.
Those consequences were also predictable.
PHM shows her dedication to her career by running to work. Barefoot. In the rain. But not uphill both ways!
Her work uniform's lack of shoes may have something to do with her disinclination to turn in stray money to the Organization.
I'd say it was also related to her desire to see her boss's ghost, but since her ultimate goal is to see everyone's ghost, I'm reluctant to read too much into this.
Coming home from work together (they're in the same career, though they'll eventually take different paths; at this point they're still at the same level, and yes, Crash's uniform includes shoes), Crash and PHM, uh, notice each other. Enthusiastically.
Speaking of unexpected and potentially inappropriate (but apparently unavoidable) attractions... While the career criminals sleep off the effects of their nocturnal work hours, I send the other two to the Summer Festival. Alatan looks charmingly bashful.
Well, Johnny seems to find it charming, anyway.
And that's as good a breaking point as any, so that's where I'll leave off this time. Next time: the summer festival, and oh so much more.