That Lazy Crazy Lady Hazy

Medical Intern | Artist | Writer | Gamer | All-around Nerd

[thatlazycrazylady]

Well, hey.

I always mean to get back into blogging, because honestly this has always been a way for me to process my life. But for the past, well, ten years I suppose it seems that life just happens and I'm too exhausted to write about it. I'm hoping that will change soon. But that is yet to be seen.

For the meantime, here are my life updates since my last post:

Finished the storyline in the Sims playthrough I last spoke about. And I love it so much, I wish I could make a series of videos about it. I streamed everything on a platform where I can download them and all. I just don't have the time at the moment.

Finished my internship. Passed my licensure exam. I did pretty good.

Got a job in January. And then another one in August. And then another one just this month. So I'm pretty much working three jobs lmao. And I must say that if there's one thing I'm thankful for in my profession, it's that I can hold three jobs and *still* have a decent amount of time for leisure.

On time for leisure... Got to see Carousel and Hamilton in Manila. 10/10. Help me. I think I'm addicted to musical theater.

Had my artwork on display in three exhibits. A fourth is opening today. And I still can't get out of my pen-and-ink phase.

I'm finally getting my own place. \o/ They say it won't be done until August, although I suspect it will be later than then too. I am so going to paint a mural on one of the walls.

My next career goal is to put my foot in the door of global health initiatives. I love my job, I really do. But I'll be honest: the most frustrating thing about it are the systemic issues that you know affect people, but you yourself can't do much about. And If I'm going to be working in health care, I would really like to be working in the room where it happens, y'know?

And that's it for now. I hope that in the next year, I can have more time with my thoughts.

[thatlazycrazylady]

I haven't posted in a while, mainly because our surgery rotation has been exhausting. Now, I love working at the hospital but it's just the irregular 60-hour workweek that gets me. That doesn't mean I've forgotten about my game, though.

Being a medical intern is an unpaid job (at least in this cursed country), but I managed to earn some monies by editing this month.

Soooo given that Sims 4 packs are now on sale on Steam, I'm getting myself Snowy Escape (because I am a weeb and love everything Japan) and University (because I have been planning for a long time that going to university would be relevant in the finale of my main storyline, and I've been waiting for it to go on sale).

So yay!

[thatlazycrazylady]

Alsoooo. Listen, my first Sims game was The Sims 2, where I did kind-of what is now the "Black Widow Challenge" long, long before I even discovered the Sims community. I played The Sims 3 briefly (loved the open world) before I got into The Sims 4 in 2018-ish, pretty late in the game.

One of the things I was upset about learning upon my first playthrough was that sims don't cuddle in bed anymore!

Now that I'm amenable to mods, we're making it happen again.

Mod by thepancake1

[thatlazycrazylady]

I wasn't sure if I wanted to start adding mods/cc to my game, but I needed to fill and upright-piano-shaped void in my life. (my mom is a piano teacher lol)

CC by glib_result

[thatlazycrazylady]

I was so looking forward to The Sims 4 My Wedding Stories Pack that I saved up for it with my book sale money.

Good thing I watch a lot of YouTubers that got early access because then I found out that the pack was super buggy. I think I would have found it worth it for the world and the CAS and build items, though. Plus Carlsims has since uploaded some fixes on his patreon.

BUT I felt like I didn't want to give EA an incentive for releasing a buggy pack so I held back. Figured I'd get it when they fix it, right? But I realized that any hope of that happening any time soon is dismal. So yesterday, I just straight up went and donated the money to Project For Awesome.

And if they do fix the pack? Well, just sent an email to the publisher for a book reprint so hopefully there will be more book money in the future. ;P

[thatlazycrazylady]

Taxi

So yesterday, my mom and I were going downtown together (her to see a piano student, me to pick up ISBN stickers for my book).

"Let's meet at the mall near Avocadoria by 7:30 so we can buy dinner and go home together," she told me. And at around the same time, she realized that she had left her phone at home and it was too late to go back to get it. But we agreed to the 7:30 meetup plan, nevertheless. Which needless to say made me super anxious.

Because, listen, I have lived through the dark days when you would tell people where and when you'd meet and expect them to show up. And then when they don't you'd have to wait in the exact spot that you agreed on, thinking perhaps that they're late on account of traffic or some other life thing getting in the way, and then maybe you'd start to worry because omg what if they were hit by a jeep on the way here???

One time in fourth grade, my mom didn't show up at school at the time we agreed on, so I walked all the way home. And when I got there, they were just about ready to call the cops. But I'll save the full story of that for another day.

Nowadays we have cellphones so you can tell the person you're meeting up with exactly why you're going to be late or, alternatively, you're rolling your eyes at your friend's text KNOWING that when they say they're "coming", it means that they just got out of the shower.

Anyway, I get the ISBN stickers, I get a strawberry yoghurt shake, do some window shopping, and hit the gym whilst I am downtown. (I didn't go to the mall we agreed upon just yet because my gym membership is in this particular mall near the hospital where I do my internship.) By the time I am done, I am now super anxious that I won't get to the spot we agreed upon on time.

I mean, I had like 40 minutes to get there, which is usually not a problem. But then I realize that I did not take in account Friday night traffic. (Traffic in this city is so stressful and is the sole reason why I've decided that I'm probably going to take root in a smaller, less congested city once I graduate.) So I decide that the only way I can increase my odds of arriving at our meeting spot on time is taking a taxi.

And look, I don't like taking taxis mostly because they've become super expensive over the years. But also because I nearly always tip taxis. "Nearly always" because if I know they're screwing me over and take a longer route or something before I realize it, man is getting no tips. But otherwise, I do like giving extra. Because, hey, we all live in this shithole country where employers, big companies, and politicians are all trying to screw us over. And relatively, I think I'm pretty lucky. My parents are, bless them, giving me an allowance, and I can still manage to scrape out a small income from doing writing and art (Although working part time in medical school? 0/10. Would not do again. Nearly drove me insane.) And I know drivers have it bad. They often have to rent their vehicles, need to cover gas and repairs, and if there aren't enough people who ride that day, that's like negative income. So yes. Me lucky in shithole country. So might as well share the extra that I have ey?

Anyway. I get into the taxi. I tell him I'm going to the uptown mall. I ask him if he has change for 500 because that's all I got on me. Yep, he says. He's got it. He then asks me if it's okay that we go through Carmen bridge because the other one is undergoing repairs and it's been really congested in that vicinity for a few days. And I say yeah, that's totally fine. My dad did say something about the repairs a few days back, so I feel like that was a legit story.

But then we get to the city hall right before Carmen bridge and the traffic is really, really bad. I'm super anxious by now because I'm pretty sure my mom will worry if I'm not there on time.

The taxi driver says that we're unlucky because the other bridge (which we could just make out in the darkness) seems clear.

I say yeah, it looks like everyone was thinking the same thing. But that's okay. We couldn't have known that the traffic was bad here.

(And I realized that map apps literally do show you the traffic. But I was anxious and didn't think to check before choosing the route, and the driver was an old man, perhaps in his 50's or 60's who didn't seem all too tech savvy.)

So it takes a full 20 minutes before we clear the bridge. The traffic wasn't so bad after that. And thankfully, MIRACULOUSLY, we hit the stop at 7:29. The meter is at 187. I hand him my 500 and say he can just give me back 300. And like usually, taxi drivers are pretty happy to do just that.

But he's like oh no, ma'am, it's totally fine, and you know what I'll even cut the 7 off you. So he gives me back 320 and I have like no idea how to react because I did want to tip him. But he insisted and you know what, sometimes you gotta be on the receiving end of generosity I guess. So I thank him profusely and get off the taxi to meet my mom.

Wish I could've gotten his name, but I was in a little bit of a rush. Just wanted to write about it because it's the first time that happened, ever.

[thatlazycrazylady]

On Writing Essays

The trouble with being a nonfiction writer (because that's where that part of my life is right now) is that your life becomes an open book. Literally.

Okay, so maybe you don't know how, exactly, I got here. So I guess I'll tell you. Ever since I learned a bit of basic html and whatnot at the age of ten (?), I've always kept some sort of website or blog on the internet. It's not something I often share with people IRL (I mean, they know about it but I have not ever actively encouraged anyone to visit or read my stuff, except perhaps on one particular phase of my life but we don't talk about that now.) And I don't think these blogs have ever had plenty of visitors. I think the reason I've always kept them is that I've always liked to have my own space, somewhere, where I can write whatever I like, without having to think about what other people might feel about what I'm writing. Or maybe I've just always needed some place to stroke my ego or something. I don't know. I'm still figuring it all out.

Anyway, between that and the random stories I make in my head and the things I've done for school and school papers, for work and work publications, I realized that I kind-of like writing. And, in a way, as with everything that I do, I've always longed for a community that does the same. (Mind you, way back in the day it was tough to look for local artistic communities, which tended to be - at least my perspective - highbrow and intimidating.) So pretty much most of my creative communities at the time were online.

But then, in my mid-20's, a local writers group that has been organizing poetry nights around the city calls for membership applications. And they seem like an accessible group of people - young, welcoming, and progressive. So I submit my application and get accepted. BUT at the same time, I'm signed up for a Writers Workshop.

Yes, not a writers workshop. A Writers Workshop. I have no idea, no clue what that is. And they ask for some of my recent, unpublished works and ask me what genre I write in. Now, look. I have many stories in my head. Many fantastical stories of magic schools and hidden staircases, worlds under balete trees and mananangals that will do you favors in exchange for blood. There is just one problem: I have not completed any of that. The whole stories are fully formed, but they're all still in my goddamn head. And so, instead, I have no choice but to submit the little things I've written in my blogs. Little thoughts about this and that, little snippets of my experiences. What genre is that in?, they ask. Well, it's certainly not poetry. Not fiction. Not drama. So I figure it is creative nonfiction?

And so I enter the Writers Workshop with no fucking clue about what creative nonfiction is (I honestly didn't even bother to google it before showing up) but eager to learn. That workshop changed my life, I feel like. But that's a story for another day. But one of the critique that I got during the workshop was that they felt I wasn't present in the piece. Like I'm trying to tell one of my stories, but I was trying to hide at the same time.

And I guess it's because I do try to hide. I have never been one to wear my heart on my sleeve. Or, more accurately, I strip my heart apart and curate the things I would like to show, but leaving the remainder of the mutilated flesh deep where nobody can find it.

But, over the years, I slowly tried to bare my heart in my writing. Not just the parts I wanted others to see but, little by little, the rest of it. (I haven't 100% put it out there, but let's just say I've written more than what is comfortable to me.)

It is telling that my medical school psychiatric examination (that I wasn't supposed to see but hey I have a knack of opening envelopes and then resealing them to make it look like they're untouched) says that I am "sentimental but is evasive of her feelings." I think about that a lot. And when I'm writing, I often ask myself: what is it that I'm avoiding? And then I barge blunderingly in that direction.

And people have loved it, for some reason. My creative nonfiction / essays have received glowing reviews in workshops and publications since. (And whenever I submit my fiction... lol nobody likes my fiction XD... but like it's not that I care so I will dump this blog continuously with my stupid sims stories.)

But then I have reached the point at which the thing which I have stated in the first sentence becomes a major problem: The trouble with being a nonfiction writer is that your life becomes an open book. Literally.

The story of how I fell in love with my boyfriend (or, at least, bits of it) is right there. The stupid random thoughts I have while waiting in bus stops and barges, they're all there. The warm fuzzy feelings I have in moments that may not mean a lot to the people I'm with but have actually legitimately changed my life - they're all there. Now they're in a book.

And I'm going to be honest: these are not the things I regularly tell my friends because I'm pretty much more of a listener than a storyteller in IRL friendships. These are things that only my writer friends know about, mostly because I feel like they're the only people who understand the depth of emotion, the sentimentality that real life has compelled me to be evasive of, that lurks in each sentence. (Also, they're pretty much my beta readers.)

Honestly, I almost feel like I don't want to release this book and just continue discretely publishing in literary journals where only fellow writers can read. But, at the same time, I feel like I have a point to make. My stories talk about people living in areas affected by conflict, people who have grown up in poverty, how we hide the things we find undesirable behind idyllic beach resorts and tourist destinations...

It seems to me that as a society (and I talk specifically about the community I live in), we are all "sentimental but (sic) evasive about (our) feelings". And maybe we can't move forward if we keep on avoiding the things that are uncomfortable. I know I've become a better person for exploring these things through writing.

TL;DR I'm publishing a nonfiction book with snippets of my life and holy shit am I anxious about it.

[thatlazycrazylady]

I live in a nice neighborhood.

After two weeks of staying at my parents' house (which is technically still my permanent home), I have moved back into my own place since we're going to have face-to-face duty for a couple of weeks.

"My own place" is a small micro-apartment thing, pretty much one room that's my bedroom, office, and dining room all at once, one small bathroom, and one small kitchen space. I cleaned it up nice before I left mid-January, so it's nice and cozy right now.

And, you know what, the more I live here, the more I really kind-of like the neighborhood. It's got a lovely park, which has a convenience store and a café in the middle. I discovered this little neighborhood nook just last month, thanks to my co-intern/neighbor who wanted to buy canned tuna or something for dinner one afternoon. And as he was telling me about his plans, I was like "wait, there's a café???" So I walked with him over there and I was positively giddy with delight.

I love coffee. Back when I had a regular 9-to-5 job, I spent a disproportionate amount of my time working in cafés because they were so cozy, they had lots of coffee, and I could pretty much avoid coworkers distracting me from my real job with menial requests. (Seriously, if you've got a knack for design, don't let anyone at the office know, because they'll have you design everything. Which is like, I kind-of like doing design but this is not what I'm paid to do.) So I think coffee has not just become a source of caffeine, but also a source of comfort. Sure, work is stressful, but a little coffee is sure to help!

Well, except for that one time when I think I was suffering an anxiety attack. I'm not diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, by the way, mostly because I've never seen a psychiatrist. Couldn't afford it. Or never prioritized it. Or both. But there have been periods in my life in which I have suffered what I think are are consistent with anxiety/panic attack symptoms. Not fun. Anyway, I was so panicked and I headed towards the nearest café and downed a cup of cappuccino way too fast and ended up a jittery mess. Fortunately, as I was in this palpitating, overthinking, highly volatile state, a couple of friends of mine walked in and said hi. They weren't actually close friends at the time, though they are now. And usually, I would not go talk to not-close friends if they seemed busy with something. But I just felt like I needed to, badly. So I talked to them, told them I was in the middle of what I thought was an anxiety attack shared a little of my grief. And that talk was just enough to like put things into perspective, got me to shut that overthinking little circuit and focus on what I needed to do to solve the problems of the day. It wasn't a long conversation, mind you. But it helped me feel a lot better, if not less jittery. Lesson learned there: when panicked, friends help but not coffee.

I think that's why I like the park and café in this neighborhood so much. It adds a lot to the sense of community. I'm not a regular member of the community, at any rate. Those would be the middle-aged to elderly folk who stop to chat with each other during morning walks, or who sit down in the park talking about the good old days over a latte. But I do like seeing them as I do my own morning walks, just greeting them with a shy good morning, or as I drink my own latte as I review another chapter of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. It makes me happy to see people have these little nice things, although it may not necessarily be mine as well.

Now, my parents' neighborhood is like a bajillion times fancier because it's got a freaking country club, with a gym and a nice restaurant, and a pool. But I don't think I quite felt a sense of community there, at least not in those supposed-to-be-communal spaces. In that neighborhood, I felt it more when neighbors invited my parents (and by extension, me) to their homes for brunch and gossip or something. Or maybe there is a sense of community, somewhere in that big old country club, and I'm just not in on it.

Or maybe I'm just thinking all of this because, despite the fact that I am an ultra introvert (you can literally lock me up with food, good internet, and/or some art materials and it will be three months before I call my mom), I think the distancing that this cursed pandemic as has compelled us to comply with has made me feel nostalgic for the little things. Having a chat with someone you meet randomly while on a walk. Running into a friend while doing the groceries. Meeting just the people you need when you've had too much coffee and no therapist.

Good times, good times.

[thatlazycrazylady]

My Sims 4 Playthrough: Side Stories from The Snow Queens, Abe edition, Part 2

Reader, our story picks up as Haruka Abe is visiting home and is now installing a composting container in her family's toilet. And so after the toilet upgrade, I get her to do a shower upgrade. And as she’s doing this, I don’t even notice that Aki comes in to use the toilet.

And, like, things are a blur and, on my recording this happen a little bit offscreen at this point because I was busy doing other things, not expecting that tragedy was about to strike. I get the popup that there has been a fire.

And despite Haruka’s ardent pleading (did I mention that Haruka and Aki were best friends too? T_T), Aki dies in the fire. I have fucking hated that upgrade on toilets since, and every time Haruka gets that task, I buy a new toilet, upgrade it, and then sell the toilet.

This put me in a pickle. The plan was for Aki to inherit the farm and for Natsumi to move on to the city after her main storyline heartbreak. I didn’t think that Haruka would be entirely happy to move back to the farm, and so, my friends, this was how Kei Abe was conceived. (If you’re wondering why it’s so important for there to be people to inherit the lots I set up, it’s because the storyline requires me to “plant” memories in each lot.)

Eventually, for main storyline purposes, I needed for Natsumi to move to the city. And then, at some point, Colin dies of old age and Harmony is in her senior years as well. At this point, Kei is still a child, and so I’m SUPER anxious that Harmony is going to die, Kei is going into the rabbit hole of social services never to be seen again, and all the memories I have placed in the lot will be destroyed and, thus, my story ruined.

And so I figured I had no choice. Haruka "I dream of the city" Abe had to move back in to raise Kei.

Here’s a photo that Haruka took of Natsumi (on a Winterfest visit to the family farm) and Kei.

And so (as of the same Sanchez timeline where Imran and Jessica get married), the Abe family saga ends (for now) with Haruka raising Kei, who has now aged up to teenagerhood.

And so the description for the Abe family farm reads thus:

Haruka didn't plan on moving back to the family farm, content with her life in the suburbs. But with her older sister, Aki, dead from a tragic fire, her elderly mother passing away in old age, and her younger sister, Natsumi, still healing from a heartbreak, there was nobody else to look after her brother Kei. With this responsibility on her hands, she figures she's got to make most with the cards she's been dealt with.

I've actually played a little further into Haruka's and Kei's storyline but I want to keep timelines consistent between posts.

Abe family tree as of this timeline:

[thatlazycrazylady]

My Sims 4 Playthrough: Side Stories from The Snow Queens, Abe edition, Part 1

Sooo let me tell you about the Abes real quick. Their story isn’t quite as dramatic as the Sanchezes (whom I talked about in a previous post). Instead of intense family estate drama, theirs is more of a slice-of-life sort of situation, but still with enough family drama that kept me on my toes.

Let’s start with Colin and Harmony, because this couple is pretty much a package deal. So, they move into Henford-on-Bagley as a young married couple, building their way from the ground up. I initially moved them into 1 Cobblebottom Street, intending for Colin to make a living through farming and eventually buy a larger farmhouse because I wanted them to have a large-ish family. Alas, Colin was really struggling. This was before I created Lex Sanchez and before I realized I only needed to make a massive plantation of high-value crops to get up in life. Colin, instead, had a small farm with a little bit of everything. And chickens. And so Harmony pitched in and started creating paintings to sell. Eventually they were able to buy up 2 Olde Mill Lane and set up a small house through Harmony’s paintings. Which is a little funny because I kind-of wanted them to have a traditional working-husband-and-housewife arrangement, but it ended up with Harmony carrying most of the game.

At some point, I really badly needed to expand and furnish the house for their three daughters. So I made it so Lex Sanchez helped them out a little bit. (Which was perfect for the main storyline because I needed the Abes and the Sanchezes to become close, eventually.)

Anyway, here are their three daughters. (They will have a son, eventually, late in life)

This is Aki, the eldest. She was supposed to inherit the family farm but, as we will see later on, this didn’t quite work out.

This is Haruka, the Abes’ brilliant, geeky middle daughter who dreams of moving into the city.

This is Natsumi, their youngest, and the one who inherited Harmony’s knack for painting. She aspires to go to art school and become a famous artist. She’s the daughter I chose to be one of the main characters, but let me just say here, in advance, that this girl had a tough early life. Aside from the family events I will be talking about below, she went through a bad breakup, she was betrayed by her best friend, all of which contributed to her not doing too well in school. (Also because there were so many of them in the family that I couldn’t keep up with everyone’s needs at once XD)

And at this point, this was my ingame description of the family:

The townsfolk of Henford-on-Bagley have witnessed how the Abes have built their farm from the ground up. As Colin initially struggled to make ends meet, Harmony pitched in by selling their paintings. Now that they live comfortably, Colin envisions that the family farm will be home to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It is a wonder, however, if that will ever happen, considering that two of his girls seem to have city dreams...

All things considered, they were a pretty happy family. I don’t really like playing big families (i.e. families larger than 3-4 people) because it’s so hard to keep up with everyone’s needs. So it was a bit of struggle to play them, to be honest. Though the struggles were kind-of consistent with my main storyline so I thought it was alright.

So to make the family a wee bit smaller, and also for character progression, Haruka moves to the suburbs (Evergreen Harbor), where I get her to live a pretty fun single life, meeting new people, learning to fabricate and moving up in the Green Technician career branch.

Aaand that’s where the trouble started.

So you know how with the Parenthood pack, sometimes your mom asks you to come visit? So I was like hey, sure, we’re a pretty close-knit family. Haruka can visit and since she’s working on her handiness skill, she can fix up things in the house. So she does this and I’m pretty pleased because the Abes are basically getting free upgrades because while their handiness skills are alright, Haruka is pretty much god-tier in this respect.

So I’m like, hey, Haruka can go ahead and do this every few days I guess? And so one day she needed to install a composting container for work and I’m like, hey, she can do that one for back home! (If you’re an Eco Lifestyle afficionado, you already know what’s going to go wrong here.)

And so I go ahead and let her do it WITHOUT READING THE DESCRIPTION FOR THE UPGRADE.

Tragedy starts when I continue this post in Part 2.

[tiktoks-for-dead-pope]

[ruthlesslistener]

Evolutionary biologist here! What they say is 100% true. 'Survival of the fittest' only refers to how successful an organism is at enduring their environment long enough to reproduce, and is not at all tied to the idea that those who are the 'best' are the only ones that survive. Evolution does not care if you keel over dead the second you give birth to a baby, it only cares if that baby survives long enough to breed again. What is the 'fittest' is almost entirely environmentally subjective; that's how you have creatures like horses that are basically living trainwreaks still roaming about vs something that people think would be better suited to filling their ecological niche. No genology or phenology has inherent worth over the other, all that matters is if they were capable of passing their genes on to the next generation

You know what gives us a huge evolutionary advantage, past our high cognitive ability? Our intense social bonding. Humans are outstandingly social creatures, and that has magnified all of our successes as well as our downfalls. The trait that made us the fittest for our environment wasn't just sheer dumb luck (though it was certainly partially attributed to that in some cases), it was love. We wouldn't be where we are if we didn't care enough about each other to value each life as highly as our own, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a fucking idiot.

[red-r0ver]

Via @gendernewtral

[boykeats]

[Video Description: A TikTok by user AugustusMorning stitched to a another TikTok. The original TikTok shows a white person looking off to the side with a teary eyes with text reading "Just thinking about the 18-20 year old woman who 4000 years ago got polio and survived but was paraplegic and was still cared for in a town she was not born in." The rest of the TikTok shows a white person with visible nonverbal disability and a tracheostomy tube signing at the camera, with captions that are read with text to speech. Captions in the transcript below. End Video Description]

[Audio/Caption Transcript: This is why the phrase "survival of the fittest" is actually ideology and not fact.

When someone online states that it's evolution that men are like “this.” That it's evolution that women are like "that." That it's evolution that some people are oppressed or die. What they are expressing is not fact but ideology.

They don't want you to look at the bones. They don't want you to see that people took care of and healed each other. That society worked in a much more mutualistic kind of way. Why? Because it goes against what they believe. How they view the world. It's not the truth. It is an expression of their own cruelty. End Transcript]

[Image ID: tumblr tags reading, "natural selection selected for a species that cares about its community." end ID]

[thatlazycrazylady]

That's right, kids. All the anime you've every watched was true: we defeat evil with the power of friendship

[thatlazycrazylady]

My Sims 4 Playthrough: Side Stories from The Snow Queens, Sanchez edition, BONUS UPDATE ON H-O-B

Update on the Henford-on-Bagley townies in this game:

Proof that Rashidah and Rahul have run away to Sulani together:

Alsooo

Maira is now a teenager, and I think I’ll pair her up with… ohhh I actually got the Moody & McMillan Household to adopt a boy (because I was so upset in a previous playthrough when they died and nobody was left in their home)…

I think it’s only right that they end up together. :D

I haven’t done much with Cecilia Kang yet. Still trying to decide what fate I should have in store for her. (In a previous save, I had her hook up with a Sim I made, then they had a child, but since she’s noncommittal and all, they decided to break up but stay friends. Not sure if I’ll do the same in this save, we’ll see…)

Also, the Scotts now have three children :D

[thatlazycrazylady]

My Sims 4 Playthrough: Side Stories from The Snow Queens, Sanchez edition, Part 2

So. Recap.

Imran Watson has to work as a farmboy in his own ancestral home.

His sweetheart and daughter of the estate's landlady, Jessica Romano-Sanchez is arranged to be married to Malcolm Landgraab. You with me so far?

So. Yes.

As it turns out, Isabella Romano-Sanchez, the landlady who arranged the marriage is suddenly struck by lightning and TRAGICALLY dies. Unplanned.

THIS IS CRAZY. It actually upset me a little bit, but I figured I could roll with it.

With Isabella gone, Malcolm now notices Imran's tight-lipped glances at him and Jessica. He figures the only way he can convince Jessica to marry him (because they have like almost 2 million in the bank at this point, and they've got a large estate, and DAMNIT IF MY NAME ISN'T LANDGRAAB) is to take Imran out of the picture. So he rents out Nettle Lane for three days and by the end of their little vacation, he and Jessica are engaged.

* cue sad music *

But OF COURSE. In typical romance novel fashion, Jessica gets cold feet on their wedding day and breaks up with Malcolm at the altar.

(Also, Nancy Landgraab pees herself after one too many drinks just before the ceremony and it upset me greatly that I couldn't take a decent breakup shot because of her.)

And we all know what happens next OF COURSE.

So I have now rightfully changed the family-in-the-estate's name back to “The Watson Family” and their ingame description now reads as such:

Now that Imran and Jessica Watson have overcome the highs and lows of their relationship (including a situation that involves Jessica running away from an arranged marriage with Malcolm Landgraab). Now that the Watson estate is rightfully back to its proper heirs, some changes are in order. Imran, now obsessed with fabrication, is now set on bringing the estate into the future. With Jessica, however, his other challenge is raising the next unruly brood of Watsons.

And that’s it for today’s episode of I get too overly obsessed about people and stories I’ve made up in my head (with the assistance of technology). This side story just brought me SO MUCH LIFE.

Sooo if you made it this far, thank you for reading my chaotic rambling. As you can tell, I am obsessed with this current save. So obsessed that I just want to record every moment of it on this obscure little blog somewhere in the depths of the internet.

BUT BEFORE I LEAVE THE INTERWEBS FOR TODAY, there will be a next post because I felt that I had to give updates on the Watsons and the rest of the Henford-on-Bagley people (I am tremendously attached to them as well at this point).

[thatlazycrazylady]

My Sims 4 Playthrough: Side Stories from The Snow Queens, Sanchez edition, Part 1

We might as well let this blog degenerate to me rambling about my Sims because this game gives me so much joy, you have NO idea. (I will be posting other stuff, apparently, but I am so excited about my current game LET ME TELL YOU.)

I’m playing a storyline that I brewed up in my head. It’s incredibly cliché and sappy, involving best friends and a love triangle and betrayal and magic and a curse that lasts several generations. I fucking love it.

I won’t be discussing the main storyline here because I have video recordings of those, which I might compile later on in to a nice vod. But I just HAVE to talk about the side stories. Because (as per usual) I ended up getting attached some of the side characters moreso than the main characters. This is probably because for the main characters (at least for the first few generations), the drama I have made up for them is planned. I know what’s going to happen, although the details of how they happen, I kind-of figure out as I go. For the side characters, however, the drama is often unplanned or spur-of-the moment (as in an “omg wouldn’t it be FUN if I made THIS happen. *rubs palms together*” kind of way).

That’s all a roundabout way of saying that I won’t be discussing the main storyline much in this blog. But all the juicy gossip on the side characters will be all here.

So. The family I’ve been playing today has been the Sanchez family.

My ingame description for them was as follows:

After Lex Sanchez makes a huge fortune off growing flowers, he moves his family to the countryside and buys off the Watson Estate. His wife, Isabella - not impressed with the lackluster country life - struggles to cope with the move. Their youngest daughter, Jessica, thrives off the fresh air and new friendships. Their son Darian, in the meantime, starts to make friendships that will set the course of his lifetime.

Lex, the founder of this family is from the millionaire-thing challenge when I was trying out the scenarios. I just love this guy. He made his fortune off a tiny home and a flower plantation. And he was such a sport through it all. He tried lots of things, because he wanted to save up and not pay anyone to do anything for him. And I don’t think I ever had a popup in which he disliked anything.

Isabella, his wife, is from my playthrough of the Finding Love After a Breakup Scenario, in which instead of getting back with her ex-boyfriend Lukas, she goes ahead and hooks up with the Lex, who is by this time a millionaire. (Don’t worry, Lukas and his descendants will probably appear in a future blog post.)

Darian is one of the main characters so we won’t get into him much. Not yet.

And obviously I needed Darian to have a younger sibling to inherit the estate. Because here's the thing: I prefer having my main sims build themselves from the ground up. It wouldn’t be fun for me if I played them having already inherited a ton of money. So Jessica was conceived, and we will follow her story in this post.

Go heat up those kettles and pour the tea because it’s going to involve a lot Henford-on-Bagley family drama.

So, I think it’s pretty canon based on the Henford-on-Bagley backstories that the Watsons are struggling, a bit. It was at this point that I decided that to save the farm, they sell it off to the Sanchezes and move into the smaller but still grand 3 Olde Mill Lane. Because for Lex, being a millionaire, I just kind-of wanted him to have the largest lot in the village. I felt really, really bad about this afterward because it was totally doing the Watsons dirty. (But I managed to make amends for this, kind-of, as you will see.)

Lex eventually dies of old age (Isabella was considerably younger than he was), and Darian marries someone who in Isabella’s eyes is lowborn so he gets only a fraction of his inheritance and is compelled to move out to 1 Cobblebottom Street.

Time passes and with only elderly Isabella and teenage Jessica on the farm (both of whom are snobs at this point, by the way, so they didn’t take very well to having to clean animal sheds and whatnot), it was becoming impossible to maintain the plantation Lex left behind, not to mention the cow and the chickens. Which is when I thought we need a farmhand for this lot.

AND SO. The way I justify this part of the story is this. Isabella turns to the Watsons yet again. At this point, their second child Imran a teenager. And quite good-looking to, I might add. So the way I imagine it is that she says look, we need help around the farm, can your son come in and work for us? (Why not Rashidah? Because obviously she’s run away with Rahul to live in Sulani by now.) At this point Rahmi and Thomas Watson’s relationship is really strained and they’re still kind-of bummed that they lost the estate, and they thought that hey having our son grow up in our ancestral home doesn’t sound too bad, so they agree and as thanks Jessica deposits a large sum of money into their account. But what they didn’t take into consideration is that while Lex Sanchez was kind and generous with the help, Isabella… isn’t.

So basically, Imran Watson had to work as a farmboy in his own ancestral home.

It’s so cliché, yet so damn poetic. I was SO pleased with this. This was the kind of drama I needed because playing a rich family isn’t exactly very interesting without an added challenge. There was one point in which Rahmi called to ask Imran to visit (you know those random in-game events from Parenthood, I think)? So Imran promised he’d visit her tomorrow. So he takes the day off of school, despite the fact that he’s a C student, and wakes up extra early so he can finish all his farm chores on time. But then stuff in the house starts breaking and so he has to repair them before he has to visit his parents. It was terrible but I LOVED THE DRAMA OF IT.

And OF COURSE, Imran catches Jessica’s pretty little eye. And a lot of shenanigans go on behind Isabella’s back. But obviously, she catches on eventually and I think: what would an extremely rich matriarch do to prevent her only daughter from marrying a farmboy? Convince her daughter to get into an arranged marriage OF COURSE.

So when Jessica reaches young adulthood, Isabella pairs her up with no other than Malcolm Landgraab who is also now a young adult.

(Sooo get yourself someone who looks at you like _____?)

It seems that I have reached my maximum image limit for this post so this story shall be continued in another post, shortly. XD

[thatlazycrazylady]

Here is where we start again.

Look, I want to start over. But apparently mass-deleting your posts on Tumblr is hard. So I'm just going to put in this post as a marker, a kind-of border stone to a life before and a life after.

There's nothing special about all this, though. It's just that I would like to write more. But I've been in kind-of a block lately. I think partially because most of the writing I've been doing has been either for publication or online scrutiny, and so there's a layer of hesitancy before anything goes out there. And though Tumblr is kind-of open to online scrutiny as well, I find it's a considerably safer (and saner?) space compared to other social media platforms out there.(Instagram is my preferred platform, actually, but it's more an image place rather than a words place.)

The truth is, I've been trying to lie low of social media for the past years. Admittedly, this has been unsuccessful since I just love putting the things I make out there. And since online forums are no longer in vogue, there are very few avenues to do so. But I have been making very few personal posts. For one thing, I find that trying to create content out of everything in my life kind-of takes away from the time I could spend just being in and feeling the moment. For another, I have been thinking a lot about the artificiality of the online world, especially after an incident involving a friend (or, should I say, former friend) who was overly obsessed with how the world saw him at the expense of the truth. But that's a story for another day.

So what has been going on since my last non-cryptic post, so long ago?

Well, I have since finished medical school. I'm on my postgraduate internship, which has been complicated repeatedly by COVID-19. I have, thankfully, managed to not lose my soul to medical school and still managed to do some art, writing, and volunteer work on the side, albeit with great difficulty.

So there is where I am. And where the bend in the road after this border stone takes us, I don't know just yet.

[thatlazycrazylady]

Still can't slack off.

[thatlazycrazylady]