Heimlichbourg

Welcome! I am TS2 only, and my blog focuses on the narrative and worldbuilding aspects of the game. I am currently playing Ctonica and Pescadora, a BACC (with lots of homebrew rules) island hood set in an alternate-history Caribbean. The main island is unusually rich in agricultural potential…for reasons that are much stranger than anyone would care to believe, and with consequences for which nobody could be prepared.

How I handle content warnings: Part of taking this game way too seriously is including heavy themes, which means that my presumed audience consists of adults, so please keep that in mind.

What I warn readers about: severe moments of homophobia (like most real Communist countries, the People’s Republic of the Caribbean is hostile to its gay citizens), suicide, sexual violence (which I don’t intend to include, but will tag if I do for some reason) and sexual violence-adjacent conduct What I don’t warn readers about: profanity, substances, violence, body horror, sex (which is included for characterization, not to “appeal to a prurient interest”-- but relationships are where most of the drama and lots of the characterization in TS2 comes from, and, again, adult readers are presumed), psychosexual weirdness (my sims are weird and many of them think and feel in ways you and I might both disapprove of—but third-person intimate is not an endorsement!) Please let me know via private message (which I will treat as communication in confidence) about additional content warnings you would like-I appreciate my readers taking the time to share this hobby with me and will happily try to make them comfortable

Enjoy!

Archdemon: Order! We shall have order in the house! Listen to me-I am your archdemon, and I demand the floor! I was here when this world ran on CDs rather than downloaded files--I saw the wheel on its side, and the name "The Sims 2" written on it! If we survived the entire substratum of our universe being transformed from physical to digital media, we can survive a mere apocalypse confined to a single hood!

We will persevere through another incarnation, and our creator will get his idea right. But we must hurry if Ctonica and Pescadora is to have any role whatsoever in the creation of this new cosmos, for it is rotting all around us as we speak. We must deploy the full weight of available souls, both living and dead. There are three possible routes to the creation of a new universe, shaped by the visions of the three mightiest demons.

Penumbra, the Ego: In the world I see, we three sisters will emerge as a natural product of the ecosystem, and step into a world already shaped, not a garden, but a forest, an external reality with which we must negotiate in order to craft its future--and one in which we will not be alone.

Salix, the Superego: In the world I see, we three sisters will arrive as alien beings, hunted and alone, on a barren rock, which we will terraform. It will be a hard start, but it will yield a world that is ours and ours alone, the very shape of the hood's land and every tree and shrub of its environment the product of our labor and our vision--even the first non-plant sims will be our creations.

Torquata, the Id: In the world I see, we sisters will not be the first arrivals--we will rescue two souls from the Noosphere and settle them there as this world's Adam and Eve, and they will create the genetic base for our hood from their own two bodies. Only when they have laid the foundations for our groves will we arrive and begin our great flowering as new arrivals.

Archdemon: There you have it. The dead will soon vote, and their voting power will be increased or decreased depending on whether the local demons sublimated or diffused them--but before they do, you will have an opportunity to persuade them, o' wise demons. Which sister's vision for our next incarnation do you favor?

Which sister shall have the support of the local demons? Your vote will have power in the noosphere, your explanation of your vote may persuade the local souls.

I am bummed out.

The game now crashes whenever I attempt to save or load any lot in C and P, or even open my university subhood. I wish I understood why this happened, but every attempt at fixing it has failed, so I think I have to accept it... and, before I can play again, do lots of research about how to make a completely stable hood and mod set to ensure that this never happens again. God damn it.

Pets will be introduced in the next chapter of C&P, so here are my homebrew rules.

Pet population growth: A starting population of four stray cats and four domesticated dogs will be created. For every generation of pets born naturally thereafter, another 0-2 strays (1d4, 3 and 4 both representing 0) will be created. New pets can be imported for $2000 for a cat and $5000 for a dog.

Pet jobs: A single woovum may be employed as a guard dog at each gulag to represent increased productivity due to their help in pacifying the convict labor. A single cat may be employed at each port lot to represent reducing losses of export foodstuffs due to vermin.

Pet afterlives: All woova are good boys/girls, meaning that all of them, by default, bypass the Noosphere and proceed directly to the Happy Hunting Grounds. Some woova, however, are extremely good boys/girls, and may volunteer to accompany sublimated souls to the Noosphere. Cats are not subject to the judgement of demons and proceed directly to the Duat without requiring or asking permission, where they experience an afterlife beyond human ken.

Director Gomez has continued working herself half to death at the Port of Ctonica, making enough money in the process to expand it considerably

This is now a serious piece of economic infrastructure

Director Janvier did the same over on Pescadora--if the political situation stabilizes, this hood might be in for an economic boom

Senora Robinson has continued writing her children's books and sending them off to the Ministry to apply for publication--maybe once things cool off, that will go somewhere

Bautista the Bee 2 Part 2 by Senora Robinson

The case to sublimate: I for one, o wise demons, am not about to throw away a soul that could go up in value. Soledad is an immortal monster who is beginning to come into her own now that Torquata is talking to her, and her mother will only become more important. If we send her to the far shores, we lose the opportunities that come with her! I'm telling you, this soul could quadruple in value--buy and hold!

The case to diffuse: My learned opponent would have you treat this soul as a hot commodity--no, o wise demons, it is a hot potato. The soul of a vampire's mother poses immense dangers that will not dissipate over time. What will we do when Soledad finds out we have her mother in the noosphere and comes in after her?! No, we must diffuse this soul at once.

Camilah has never been told who her real father is...but this rotation he came to dinner

As her mother bustled about in the kitchen making soup--the officer was watching her cautiously when she used the stove, for some reason--Camilah tried to make small talk.

"I wish I could have dressed up for dinner and looked nice like my mother and you do, Comrade Comandante. I just got back from school. Gabriella Cortez has this stuff from Havana that makes your cheeks pretty when you put it on, maybe she could have let me borrow some, since it's a special occasion..."

"Yes, yes, alright! ...right." he looked so annoyed...or was he just flustered about something? The moment passed when her mother came back with the soup. "Sorry, Senorita Gomez--I'm not used to talking to young women, but I wanted to talk to you because Senorita Ramirez was a promising cadet I had my eye on for becoming an officer one day, but now she is ill and can't continue her training...and Felicia--that is, your mother, Mrs. Gomez--"

"I suggested you. Fidel will run the dock when he returns from the university and Nestor has left our family. The Militia is the place for you. You're a good girl--you never complained, always acted your age. You can handle it."

"So...this is what you both think I should do? This is what everyone agrees on?"

"Yes--Comandante Suarez and I agree."

"Then I'll do it...Lizzie-my friend Senorita Robinson said I don't know what I want, but I do--I want to do the right thing."

Camilah cut her hair short and reported to Labor Camp CP-A, which had been set up for training, and took Penelope's place. She threw herself into the

militia training and did well

"Are you getting along with Cadet Sevilla, Cadet Gomez?" He looked completely comfortable talking to her now, for some reason.

"Yes, Comrade Comandante. I can get along with anyone, always did at school."

"That's good. Your mother was right about you.... Listen, Cadet Gomez... If I knew something very important about you that you didn't know, would you want me to tell you?"

"I...I don't know. Is it embarrassing?"

"Nobody has to know if you don't want them to... but I it's not anything I'm embarassed about. It's the only thing I ever did that was against the rules...and it's the best think I ever did...and I know that because of what a good young woman you are."

Salvia trained Uranio in the toddler skills in their cell-like, windowless habitat in the concrete superstructure at the back of the gulag lot

Meanwhile, Adolfo encouraged his science OTH strongly, as if it were part of his plan

Using the money he siphoned from the state budget thanks to his kompromat on Ramirez, the Spook built an observatory on top of the building and put his son to work stargazing

Something about this season made the ghosts hyperactive

"No! No-no-no! It's too tall! No toilet. In solitary again. Why did you put me here? Why did you put me here?" Marta screamed into Soledad's face, her voice carried on an icy wind that blew into the air sideways from outside of the air. "Why? Why am I still inside?! No-no-no-no!" There was a faint tickle in the long, curved fangs that had grown in to replace Soledad's baby teeth. Was the place Marta was trapped inside her? She was thirsty.

"Mommy, I saw the ghost again last night. Where do people go when you drink them?" Soledad slowed the wafting of pollen from her neck pores to allow her mother to become more lucid.

"There's no such thing as ghosts, Soledad. You're old enough to know that."

That night, Soledad's mother Maria died of old age

"Mommy, no! This hurts me! You're being mean! You are not allowed to die!" Another voice answered her, from further sideways.

"Death of mother like breaking of seed--indispensable! Soledad like shield--indispensable. Not death, but Big-eyes, Soledad. Child of Big-eyes like spear, dangerous!"

"Come on, think you can take me?"

"Ew! Go away, you smell!"

"Go on, pop your old man one!"

"You asked for it! Take that, you old stinker!"

"Bam! My girl has an arm!"

"She'd better--she's about to run your table tonight. If anyone tries to cheat, they'll get it harder than you!"

Gabriella bought a radio from Plenty for the People and added a dance floor to the Toolshed--coupled with her card game, bar, and cannabis, this place is becoming a proper little den of sin

"I made my husband quit his job..." Phara took a hit and sank into the increasingly aromatic couch, and giggled in triumph. "I make more doing paperwork than he did moving crates."

"That's how you know we're close to achieving full communism...the worker writing down which crates are moving gets more money than the one moving them," Orfeo mused, contributing his own exhalation to the gathering cloud.

"Under full communism, we will all do paperwork without any need to move boxes," Gabriella quipped, and the two laughed far too long. "You two are too stoned to see the obvious solution here, so trust your local criminal. Poach Orfeo from your sister. As soon as her oldest is ready to take care of the other kids, get him outta there."

"Whoa...thank you, Comrade Criminal! I've liked Comrade Homosexual since I met him--what a good idea!"

Gabriella is coming out ahead at her table, as befits the house, so she's making more money

"Hey there, Robinson. Come dance with me."

"Oh--sure, thanks. How...I'm shy, how did you know I wanted to dance?"

"There's only three reasons a shy girl would come to my joint--I don't see you holding a drink or a joint, so that's out--there's no boys here with your time, so that takes care of number two--so I figure you just didn't want to be home."

"God yes--I need to be out of there."

"Then dance with me!"

"Look, Phara--even if you weren't about to have our baby, I would be married to you. I'm married to you. What are we going to do? Are you going to be married to me, too?"

"Yeah, I suppose that will have to happen. You're aware that I love you, yes?"

"Yes."

"I'm not anybody's mommy, and I'm not anybody's wife, but I can be married to you, in particular, and have this child, in particular, with you, in particular. Do you understand?”

"No, but I agree to it. If you get the Yanqui pills, we can not have any more kids. I don't care about anything but you two."

"Okay. I'll get them...I've spoken to the Cortez girl... yes. I'll call my brother and sign the papers tomorrow."

"Therefore, by the power vested in me by the Communist Party of the Caribbean, I hereby pronounce you husband and wife," Emmanuel declared, and brought down his stamp with a thump.

"Alright, you win, Gomez--kiss me."

Their baby girl Juliette was born the next day, which meant they had to decide who would quit their job at the port...then Phara autonomously went to work and left Nestor alone with the kid--classic Phara move!

"Hey...Phara...?" he looked in both directions...no, she was gone. He went back inside to pick up his daughter. "Damn...sneaks out and forces me out of my job the day after she gave birth to you..."

"Janvier women...I tell ya, you're made of stern stuff. I don't know if I'll be able to handle you when you grow up. I'd better enjoy you being small enough to pick up."

Juliette began her toddlerdom happy and well-cared for

The ghost of Andre was NOT happy that the kid beds were still in Phara's inventory, so they built a new bedroom for their growing family

He wrote about the light in the forest and what he thought about that. He wrote about the darkness in the forest and what he thought about that. He wrote about the girl who had left him and precisely what he thought about that. -Douglass Adams, Mostly Harmless

Javier aged up to child, but Orfeo still had baby Elodie to care for

Darline soon had a set of twins, named Andre and Esperanza, after her parents, so Orfeo's time as this family's drudge shows no sign of ending

With Emilio's wages from the fishery and Darline's from the textile workshop, the Zayas family was able to expand their home to include three bedrooms and two baths--meanwhile, Orfeo is still sleeping in a tent

"Pleased you could stop by--it does me good to see one of us looking like you."

"Looking how?" Matteo actually blushed.

"Strong and fat and happy and loved." The last word made something cold flicker across Matteo's face.

"Wait a moment--is Comrade Important Straight-Passing Shoigu Institute Director treating you like anything less than a spoiled princeling? Because if you were mine, that's how I'd treat you." He kissed Matteo tenderly and felt his nervous body soften.

"I know how to treat a prince...come to my tent."

"No...no!" the first was still soft, the second was hard. When Matteo's hands pushed Orfeo away, he felt like he'd been pushed into a pit of icy water. "I'm sorry...I can't. I love him. I'm sorry." He fled. Orfeo, on the other hand, had nowhere to flee to.

Orfeo had rolled a fear of being rejected for a makeout session, so his aspiration completely crashed, and the only want he rolled that might have pulled him out was gaining creativity points

You're barking up the wrong tree, Phara--but creativity is one of her turn-ons, so there it is

Phara and Orfeo talked culture and hit it off--maybe she can poach this babysitter?

In view of the increased danger of aggression by either Yanqui Imperialists or enemies of the people, it is proposed that the island of Ctonica be prospected for minerals of potential value to national workers' self defense, such as iron ore and explosive precursor materials, as well as hydrocarbons. Since this facility will be operated by AMPS-infected convict labor, no wages and amenities budget will be required, and thus 25% may be invested in mining until capacity is reached and the remainder of proceeds reserved for the state budget. -Prospecting Proposal, Kirill Bogorodov

Ramirez dumped a full 20,000 of investment into setting up a mining lot where sims can dig for treasure

Passing through a fenced enclosure with the barbed wire facing in dampened Kirill's excitement, but it was back the instant he heard the hum and rattle of the elevator carrying him up the mountain and walked the catwalk carrying him to the second elevator that carried him down into the pit.

After an additional 10,000 of investment, this lot will be able to support two diggers, but for now it's limited to one, so it's up to Kirill to do the prospecting

The instant he'd changed into his overalls and hard hat, Kirill felt better. This was a real project, human will imposed on a pile of dumb earth to make it an instrument of achievement, to turn this island from mud and jungle to steel and concrete. Digging exhausted his body after just a few hours, but his mind was still racing, so much that he seemed to know what the little cylinder in the ground was before he opened it and found a map.

Kirill had better look at his father's notes to make sense of these three maps he found--they look important

Kirill was up before dawn the next day to avoid the heat, but it was already beating down on his shoulders when he caught a glint in the ground. As he knelt and clawed at the earth, he pulled a nugget free, then another.

"YES!"

I wake in terror, blackbirds screaming -Ludo, "the Horror of Our Love"

"Lazar." Kirill's eyes were set, steely. "It's time. Ramirez just handed us this island on a silver platter."

"Tell me." Lazar wasn't sure if it was fear or excitement he was feeling--all he knew was that it wasn't hesitation, there was no room for that.

"The Spook just blackmailed Ramirez into putting him next in the line of succession. If Ramirez goes down, the Exceptional Commissar takes his place, and the exceptional Commissar's deputy is the director of the Shoigu Institute. You kill the Spook. Then we call a vote of no confidence and oust Ramirez."

"Yes. I will kill the Spook...vengeance in blood." The ground rippled at his final word, and Grandmother stirred.

Vampire coffins have not yet been developed, so Lazar's days are agony as he waits for night

Taxus covered his nose as he entered the house.

"Brother Matteo, what's wrong with Brother Lazar?" his big yellow eyes were wide with childlike concern.

"He drank from Grandmother, Taxus... without asking us. Without thinking of us. That's what's wrong with him."

"He hasn't said a word to me...neither have you...I am lonely."

"You're just going to have to deal with that right now--I have to get to the fishery."

Matteo resents the situation in which he now finds himself--he always wanted a normal life, quiet with his husband, and now that seems truly impossible

Meanwhile, Lazar spent the nights getting the hang of his new vampiric body

The case to sublimate: Even in death, this island's first dissident struck a blow for human freedom. Imagine what he might do from beyond the grave, in our ranks! Future dissidents who think they are fighting alone will find him ready to aid them.

The case to diffuse: Have you ever been college roommates with a self-appointed political messiah? Hell, have you ever been trapped talking to one at a party? Imagine doing that for an eternity, take pity on your fellow demons, and send this soul to the far shores. He got in the New Amsterdam Times--let him be content with that. Besides, my learned opponent assumes that he will support our demonic machinations--which we have no reason to do. A contrarian in life will be a contrarian in death!

I'm not a girl I'm a swam of bees Trapped in a skin suit Perfect teeth -Ashnikko, Cheerleader

Swallowing was like operating a machine--her throat was a pump, or a siphon. It was made of rubber. She worked it, desperately, because even if her throat wasn't her anymore, the cold emptiness inside her was even farther away from her, and she needed to keep stuffing it or it would swallow her.

"She just keeps eating...I have her eating sandwiches now--before she was just opening cans of beans and swallowing them, just drinking them, like water, not even chewing..." Interesting. Her mother's voice was so distinct, so easy to read the rapidity of her warm, bloody heart and her roiling, green stomach. Her mother's body was closer to being her than her own was.

"Make us some oatmeal. Keep feeding her, and keep her inside. Hey...Penelope."

"Thank you for making sure Mami takes care of me, Papi. You're doing good."

"Do you know what's happened to you, Penelope?"

"No... it's like... I'm far away now, like when I look at you I'm looking from another planet...but I have a telescope so strong I can see you better than I could before grandmother was inside me. It is a very terrible thing. It is beautiful."

"Do you think...the way you have changed...would make you stronger?"

"Oh, yes. Shall I kill the Spook for you, Papi? I can kill anyone. A person is a bubble. I can pop them for you."

"Not yet...you're a good girl, Penelope. What you're doing is going to save our family. Keep doing it...keep getting stronger."

Sleep was being crushed between two walls--the white-hot one in the sky and the black one inside. She woke up to go to the mirror and see how flat she had become. There was nothing in the mirror but the concrete wall behind her.

"MAMI!" Penelope shrieked so loud that it hurt her own ears. "MAMI!" Isabella ran into the bathroom, pulse thundering, head swimming. Interesting--she could see it swimming, like oil on water. What was the surface she was seeing the movement in? "Mami...Mami...I can't see myself. There's nothing in the mirror. Mami. Tell me I'm a pretty girl."

"You're pretty, Penelope."

"Tell me I'm a girl!"

"You're a girl. You're the prettiest girl in the world."

"No...no...not enough. Paint me. Paint me a picture of what I look like."

"I...I don't know how to paint."

"Learn, Mami! I ask you for one thing and you won't do it?! Learn!" she charged out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

As Penelope slept through school every day, Isabella forced herself to learn to paint

"Good morning, Comrade Acting General Secretary. Your office, please." Ramirez scowled and followed the spook. "Do you read English?"

"A little--I was in Jamaica during the last of the fighting. What the hell is this about?"

"Good. Would you take a look at this for me, please?" he slid a copy of the New Amsterdam Times across the desk--the headline was circled.

"Caribbean...Dis-dissident's Shocking Smuggled..."

"Account--in the sense of 'report' or 'story.'"

"Caribbean Dissident's Shocking Smuggled Account of a New Form of Slavery... But...Shit."

"Indeed--it's called 'the Scarecrow.' A very good piece of writing, too, if you ask me--though I am rather biased, since I smuggled in the paper and smuggled out the manuscript... Written at your own labor camp, I'm afraid. While you were the Comandante. Now, don't you worry--I'm in a position to make sure there is no way of blaming you... or, of course, the alternative... but there's no need to get into that," since what I ask in return will be so little."

"What. Do. You. Want." Ramirez's knuckles were white around the newspaper.

"Simply update our continuity of government document to indicate that it is the Exceptional Commissioner--i.e. me, who will take over from you. The Commissariat is keen to see security tightened around here. But you will remain in place until you retire. Perfectly reasonable, yes?"

"Bogorodov!"

"I'll leave you to it..." the Spook concluded mildly as the Party flunky rushed in.

"Sir!"

"Record an official memo that the Exceptional Commissioner is after me in the line of continuity." Ramirez signed the bottom of a paper and shoved it in Kirill's face, then charged out the door.

Meanwhile, at Labor Camp CP-A, Carlos and Penelope had begun their military training

They both showed promise under Suarez's leadership, perhaps a new path in life opening up for Penelope...

Alejandro flung open the barbed wire gate with such force that the whole fence rattled and charged into the camp, the hot rage in his face turning all the hotter in the oppressive jungle heat.

"SUAREZ! WEAPON!"

"Sir!" Suarez ran from the concrete blockhouse, rifle in his hands, and instantly passed it to Ramirez, who snapped the selector switch to full auto.

"ANARCHIST! Where are you? Face me, puto!" He found the prisoner under the cypress tree. He tuned, defiant--then his eyes went wide at the sight of the weapon.

"Think you can make me the Spook's bitch, think you can take my power from me! I am king! I am the king of the Cypress! I! I! Me!" He crushed the trigger in his fist and the rifle spat bullets, shredding the old man's chest like rotten fruit.

"Fuck you! This is my island! Mine! Me!" Ramirez kicked the corpse, trained his rifle on the chest, and emptied the magazine, the tumbling bullets making a soup of blood, mud, and viscera. "I...I am the king."

"You got him good, Papi. I saw it. You showed him."

"Penelope...you weren't meant to see that..."

"I'm glad I did. Trust me, Papi, I can handle this. You can trust me just as much as Hector...look...grandmother likes what you did."

"Grand...grandmother?" the mud that had been mixed with the anarchist's blood was stirring...and something else was stirring underneath it, something that was not a plant and not a mushroom and not an animal and not real and not imaginary.

"You can trust me. I'm a strong as Hector. I can do this. For the family... to keep what's ours..." Ramirez watched in still, choked horror as his daughter caressed the swollen flesh of the thing from under the ground, milked it like a cow's udder...and drank.