Sims player fourteen generation deep into a legacy. Here's their story! Also, art and builds.
The nights out continued.
The dancing continued.
Sometimes I ran into Miranda at some night club. My antics left her confused most of the time.
Everything was different at night.
Was it drinks or the DJ making us more flirty than usual?
Possibly a mix of both.
Possibly…
Straight after practice, I whip out my laptop and set to work on a personal project of mine, a journaling mobile app. It only makes sense, considering the time I spend writing in diaries. Yet none of the apps out there do the trick for me, so I’m doing it myself.
For ten minutes I can clearly see Hugo looking over my shoulder. Then he can’t contain himself anymore, and he says it. The words every girl wants to hear.
“Why on Earth are you using that IDE? Switch to IntelliJ!”
I tell him I’m well aware of the superiority of pretty much anything above the software I was using. So we talk about just how much said software sucks. Then we joke about coding in Notepad. We compare notes about programming languages. I tell him I’m a Python kinda gal.
Romain pops by with his homework. He’s not a Python kinda guy. He’s not a coding kinda guy. He’s an artsy dude, which is probably why he got along with my family. But Hugo and I are not fascinated by the Philosophy he’s literally brought to the table. So he works on his essay, and I comment my code with a snickering Hugo by my side to point out my mistake.
It started inside the walls of the Air Complex.
Our high school had many things. High end computers; a library to kill and die for, and teachers that were both competent, and good-looking.
But since my great-aunt Millicent and her squad left, no one had picked up the cheering team. We did have a dingy old basketball team, but it had no victories to show for its existence at all. Convincing the principal that they might only need… cheering up.
So the girls and I left the school that day with a detour by the gymnasium, where we picked up cheer outfits. Two girls, Cecilia Ryan and Juliette Al Fassi saw us, and asked if there was room in the squad. Seeing as Hugo and Romain noped right the hell out of the whole idea, there was.
And just like that, we were a team on more than one aspect.
At first, understandably, we kind of sucked. With the amazing repertoire of two songs we knew how to dance to and dance moves to match a hectic ten-year-old’s, we decided we probably should practice before doing any kind of stupid thing in public.
The wooden-floored rooms in the Air Complex were a godsend. From there, we could practice and fail safely. In the room with the DJ Booth, Marie spent hours fine-tuning the songs and mashups we would dance to. It turned out, the skills the DJ displayed on our bowling night had fascinated as much, if not more, than the dancing itself.
We met three times a week, and we were great at this.
“So I was in the mosh pit, and then this guy appears out of nowhere, and he has this DJ Sul shirt, and…”
“And I just know I gotta make friends with the dude. We’re practically already friends.”
“So I grab his arm, and he sees my DJ Sul pin and then we…”
“Haha, yes, thanks for this. Anyways…”
“And then he tells me he doesn’t even know who DJ Sul is!”
If you can’t see in Marie’s eyes that she doesn’t know why Romain even bothers with me, I’m telling you I’m pretty sure that’s what she is thinking at that moment. I know, because that’s surprisingly close to what I am thinking myself.
I had an idea.
Once the haze around caused by our Bowling Night dissipated, I start thinking up ways that we could feel this again. This powerful, dizzying feeling of energies working together, as a group, as a whole.
There was a way that we could make this a habit without turning into six alcoholic night creatures, I am convinced of it. The opposite would be unfortunate, to say the least.
My way of channeling my thoughts involves bouncing a basketball around in the small hours of the morning, before anybody is even awake.
Pac. Pac. Pac. The steady sound against the concrete.
Then I find it.
Late nights and early morning training are not the recipe for punctual students/
You’ve never seen anyone dance like a group of teenagers who have had ten years to rehearse — except maybe in Simliwood movies, but they hardly count.
The Essence of Simlies has a dance floor with more surface than most people’s houses. Alternating tiles of transparent blue and orange. You look under your feet and you can see the poor souls struggling with their bowling ball.
But you don’t — you hardly have a reason to look under your feet. The top floor of the nightclub is where the bar is. The bar, the DJ booth, and the five sound systems that blast the whole floor with bass.
That’s where we end up when we have enough of missing the easy spares and of the gutter playing Jedi tricks on our balls. Marie, who’s had one drink too much and spilled another one on her outfit (probably the best outcome for her liver), walks onto the bright orange and blue floor, in an older set of clothes that she asks us to please not remark on.
Romain says it’s too bad; he liked the outfit she was wearing.
When he says this I get up from the bar, and I finish my drink in one sip. My head is getting lighter, and maybe it gives my voice even more enthusiasm when I encourage my friends to join me on the dance floor.
It’s the first time we do something like this. But when we stop dancing, sweaty, and energized, and exhilarated, with the biggest smile on our faces, we know this is not the last. We know we have to do it again.
Autocorrect is a witch, isn’t it.
We never drink too much. And there’s barely any alcohol in the drinks they serve here. But that’s enough to get us dangerously disinhibited.
What else to talk about in a nightclub but your favorite video games?
Nerd or pro? Or both? What I know is, the game is less than three years old, and I only have a thousand hours clocked myself.
I blame that one last drink for the finger guns. Terrible, terrible imitation of the in-game guns, Azalea.
The flirt don’t stop.
… Oh hai Romain.
Sometimes, when you’re absolutely busted, you gotta accept it. And talk about Maths. Or Physics. Or anything, really.
At least until everyone’s distracted again.
The paradox of loud places is that you can shout at each other and be sure no one else will ever hear. The auditive version of hiding in plain sight.
We get tired of throwing balls straight into gutters, so we climbed upstairs. There are tables for clients there, and we sit around one of them, the six of us. Six of us in three different conversations. We shout over the music, we talk about everything and anything. I think Romain and Marie are debating attending a concert in San Myshuno. Charlotte is telling Shanna about the fashion business she’ll be starting once she graduates.
Hugo and I start talking about video games. The ones we love, the ones we loathe, and how we would improve those. How we’ve already improved some. It turns out we share a lot on this subject. We’re passionate, and so is our conversation.
Then evolves and sways into some different territories. The music is loud, and no one else is really paying particular attention to us.
Hugo announces that he’s going to get us some drinks, and I follow him.
Six teenagers, one table, three conversations, twelve ruptured tympans.
Marie and Hugo debating a topic I know next to nothing about. For once, I don’t really care. That much.
I’m absorbed in discussing my own passions, with someone else.
… Or maybe just discussing passion.
Parched from us talking too much, Romain gets up to go to the bar. I debate with myself for a full second.
… Then I follow him. And no one seems to notice or care much.
At the Essence of Simties, the lights go out at Midnight, and we enter Nightclub lighting.
And then everything seems different. The lights are dimmer but the feelings are grow tenfold. The music and the lights, and the potential cocktails — something starts thrumming under your skin.
It’s a moment out of time, out of the world.
It’s another world entirely.
Whatever Marie and I said to each other under the loud Disco tunes, it was none of what both of us actually wanted to discuss.

I’d be lying if I tried to pretend I wasn’t fully aware of Hugo’s gaze on me. I’d also lie if I said I wasn’t taking advantage of that knowledge.
… Unfortunately, this is what happens when you’re more focused on how your backside looks than actually throwing the ball correctly. Hugo did not comment…
… But our eyes met. He was smiling. So was I.
… One alley per bad player, probably the best way to avoid ridicule after all?
Grandma tried to teach me to bowl when I was a kid. But when I enter the Essence of Simties, I suddenly realize how far back in time these lessons now seem.
I’m the leader of a group of teenagers, and at that moment, I’m painfully aware I’m about to get absolutely ridiculed. But then I look around — and it is very clear that none of us have any idea what they got themselves into. Tacitly, we agree that we’re ready to get very ridicule, very fast, together. And we march into the bowling alley as if we owned it.
Which, surprisingly, none of us do.
… This is going to be a disaster.
Shanna sent her ball straight into the gutter. Marie, in the background, looks uncharacteristically happy, I must say.
…
There was an attempt.
The ball won’t defeat me. Determined as ever, I know I’m getting better at this as the evening progresses.
Marie and Romain, talking in the background. What are they talking about? Is he making her laugh?
As I go for my attempt at a Spare (or in this case… my attempt at touching any pin, really), I hear Charlotte join their conversation, and I thank her silently.
Six pins go down. Marie misses the whole thing in favor of whoever’s Smistagram she suddenly chose to stalk.
Terrible at bowling, but great at being friends.
The Stewarts Family (and other shenanigans) 