#5_23

It's only right, I think, for Tyler to propose where they first met — now the heart of New Promise — with the home they've built together all around them.

No guitar serenades, no spectators, no frills.

It's a chilly fall morning and Tyler is rough chopping some late season tomatoes prepping salsa fresca to serve with the tamales steaming away (...uncovered?) on the stove top.

"Mom is going to flip that you're messing around with knives again."

[nervous yip]

"Dulce! You don't have to go to school! Just me and Mom."

...

"Thank you."

"For what?"

For helping him revisit his own cultural practices, buried in distant memories of traditions half-observed in a hectic, single parent household?

For embracing his identity as equally important in raising their daughter, even though biologically, Lydia isn't his own...?

For facilitating a community ritual of remembrance in a population heavy with incalculable loss?

Just a quiet morning at the U-STORE. One of my meant-to-do-it-before-the-time-skip goals for Tyler is upgrading all the toilets in New Promise to have bidets, so I can officially stop worrying about where my sims get toilet paper or what they use instead a full decade into the post-apocalypse.

And why not knock out some other eco upgrades while he's at it? The dam might be providing plenty of power and potable water for their little micro community for now, but with little monitoring or maintenance, who knows how long the infrastructure will hold? Better to take meaningful steps toward self-sufficiency now while they still have the basic necessities in place.

Octavia, meanwhile, is focused on her own ambitious goal: hand-knitting a little something for every New Promiser for Christmas. ...Like I said, ambitious.