#Josephine Duplanchier extra

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A GioJo baby would be absolutely gorgeous so this is my petition for you to bless this world with them in CAS at least 🙏

Your wish is my command and also now my greatest regret...

This is the the first child generated by them in CAS, no tweaking at all only skin details and a makeover as though she would be in her 20s in the 1950s.

Am I absolutely out of any sort of chill? Do I regret all my choices? Most definitely. So uh, please just have another photo of her in CAS before I lose my cool and go full photoshoot/AU/side plot madness...

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Saw my darling @swiftviolets doing this so I had to hop aboard the bandwagon with our Darlingtons. Alas, they barely fit so Violette will have to wait for next gen’s height chart 😉

(Anybody surprise you? 👀)

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jo in 👗!! i feel like she'd be so cool in like rockabilly style or something

👗: OC in something from the 1950s

You are more than right on that front, Nonny. And please forgive me, I may have added a certain someone for us and our girl...

Was all this just an excuse to play with @antiquatedplumbobs amazing diner and listen to the Grease soundtrack? You bet your ass it was…. 🎶🏫

[aheathen-conceivably]

STATISTICAL  CHARACTER  PERSONALITY TEST.   take  the  quiz  from  the  perspective  of  your  character,  then  select  5 - 10  results  from  the  complete  matches  list  that  you  feel  resonate  with  your  character  the  most (I selected the highest match and three more from the top ten)…

Zelda Darlington

Cue your wide eyed protagonist with a tendency to ignore everything around her in favor of getting lost in her own mind. Bonus points for an added dash of innocence, preoccupation with love, and the seemingly unexplainable ability to charm everyone around her despite how utterly distracted by her own thoughts she always seems to be.

Antoine Duplanchier

Did someone order a too-moody-for his-own-good I can fix him love interest? Does he have a tragic backstory and a penchant for withholding his emotions until he explodes on those he loves most? But then he professes his loyalty with grand gestures and declarations of eternal love? Well do I have the story for you…

Josephine Duplanchier

Does your wide eyed protagonist need a bitchy sidekick? Does she have a penchant for manipulating everyone around her but the audience can't help but love her anyway? One thing is for sure, someone’s heart is getting broken, and she’s going to make damn sure it isn’t her own.

Giorgio Mistretta

The internet has officially decreed that Giorgio is the fuck-boy love interest who's too attractive for his own good. Meanwhile his girlfriend bosses him around and he swears he doesn’t like it, even though it’s pretty obvious he does. He has a habit of making really stupid choices; but he did it all for love, right? Right?!

(I was tagged by @citylighten -thanks boo!- and in turn tag @thebramblewood @elderberries-and-honey @antiquatedplumbobs and @surely-sims plus anyone else who wants to!)

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Who she’s on vacation with this AU Love Day? Well now that I could not tell you…

(Aka I had to revive modern Jo to try out these sets by @joliebean and @serenity-cc . She did not disappoint 💋🌹🎁)

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What kind of love are you? 🥀

(Saw the marvelous @igotsnothing do this and I couldn’t resist. So consider yourself tagged if you see this and wanna do the same darlings)…

Love as a Threshold

Your love does not ask for much. Your love does not take. Your love is free, and unquestioned, and here for wherever needs it. When you fall in love, it is as gentle as a breath in the night. It is quiet, and it is effortless. It is tender. If your love was a house, it would readily welcome all who come through. If your love was a hearth, it would warm the hands of whoever stopped by, whether for a day, a month, a year, or forever. When you fall for someone, it is without strings, without conditions, without need. You love for the sake of loving, for the sake of caring for those who need it. You love with a giver’s heart and a giver’s hands and are made so much stronger for it. Being loved by you is to always feel at home. Your love may not always be well-received by those unprepared to linger, but it is unforgettable all the same.

Love as the Dawn

Pastel, saccharine and hopeful, your love rises slow to greet the day. It tiptoes on doe feet and blossoms bit by bit, petal by petal. Love is new to you, isn’t it? A fresh discovery in a world you do not quite understand. Your love loves with bated breaths. Your love swoons and sighs and lingers under awnings. Your love romanticizes. Your love aches as tenderly as a bruise. You’re swollen with desire and idealizations. The perfect kiss, the perfect touch, the perfect partner in life. Your love is wide-eyed and innocent, naive and pristine and oh, so very easily breakable. Being loved by you is to be loved by a child, by a lamb, wooly-eyed and helpless. Oh. I really hope it lasts.

Love as a Force of Nature

Your love is like whiplash –– it comes in with the rain, it blows the doors wide open. When you fall in love, it is sudden and hard and immense. It is powerful. It is earth-shaking and world-ending. Nature is a force, and that force can be destructive if you're not careful. See how the world is doused in gasoline and set on fire –– your love consumes, your love takes, your love burns. You're hot and cold all at once, a hurricane and a wildfire bound together in skin, and when you're in love, it can feel like it's eating you alive from the inside out. When you love, it is with everything you have because it is everything you have. Be careful, darling, because not everyone survives the storm.

Love as Religion

Devotion, that is the name of your love. Your love is an act of worship. Your love is like witnessing the birth of Venus, like seeing the sun come alive, or the stars fall. When you love, it is because you have found God in a lover. You have found the meaning of life itself in the heart of the one you adore. They are everything to you; they are your Maker, and you are their lamb, their flock, their first and holiest worshipper. When you fall in love, it is as a baptism. You are born anew, made a believer in the divinity of the one you love most. Being loved by you is an ascension; it is holy and golden. It is all-consuming, and all-faithful, loyal as the dog. You will never, ever bite back.

(Okay but thank you to the original author of this quiz because I love each and every one of these descriptors and could quite literally not have written them more perfectly for each one of them. As usual I gotta know…who you pickin’? 👀)

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💀 I crave goth representation on this page. Pick the sim you think would be alternative if they were in the 2020s - LGL

💀: OC in goth/emo/scene attire

Well, now, LGL, I never thought this one would turn out as well as it did, but you and @sensitive-trait (who requested Goth for Jo) may have gifted us with the Duplanchier siblings we never knew we needed...

Single dropping next fall, take your pick for album cover because I positively cannot 😮‍💨

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Josephine Duplanchier

💌 Post 4 pictures from Pinterest that describe your OC. Tag 3 other simmers to keep the chain going!

I was tagged by @kelloggjkellogg and @swiftviolets (who’s Lori absolutely inspired me to pick Jo for obvious reasons), and tag my dear @thebramblewood @surely-sims @antiquatedplumbobs but y’all feel free to pretend you do not see it 😉

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Even a toxic love has its moments…. 🎶

(Alternatively titled: bonus half-clothed Gio for the stans 😙)

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Josephine with a baby would be insane. I don’t have anything else to say; the dynamic between an uneasily pregnant Jo and a wishful and wistful Zelda, still waiting for lightning to strike HER again, would be so heartbreaking. I do think Jo could find new purpose with a child, especially in this life that’s so different from anything she imagined for herself, but it’s not a decision to be taken lightly or made on a whim. It would take a serious miscalculation (as if!) or some bizarre irregularity in her cycle……. Highly unlikely. 👀

Well hello hello, friend. Look at you, back in the inbox right on schedule. Grab a chair, why don’t we? It’ll be a long one….

Okay so FIRST of all this is why when you sent me that ask yesterday I was like, boy oh boy, do we have a psychological dive in store for you. Because y’all, there’s so damn much going on in that post. Why don’t we, uh, go back to an old tradition and follow a heathen under the cut while she rants about her pixels…

A plotline where Jo would be (even somewhat begrudgingly) pregnant while Zelda was the one who wanted the child would be too heartbreaking, even for me. While I think there’s potential there for support and mutual parenting (which they’re doing with Violette), at its core it would be gut wrenching for them both. I think we can really see why that is for Zelda, as she almost “illogically” wants a child more than she can describe. This is where the double entendre of Josephine talking in the mirror in today’s post comes in, because we can apply it to Zelda and the fact that there are VERY good reasons for her not to want another child. But there’s still something in her that is longing for one, and so to make her watch while it happens to her best friend would absolutely break her.

However, Jo is not aware of Zelda’s struggles at all. When she is speaking in the mirror, she is talking to herself. What we (and Gio) caught Jo in the middle of was sheer, unadulterated spiraling. If you go back to the last line of the corn post, you can see Jo setting herself up for this, insofar as she thinks that Zelda is happy because she has fully given herself over to this life, and that Josephine wants that; she just doesn’t now how.

Keep in mind Josephine is 32 at this point, and I think this is an age where there’s a moment for many people who can bear children, where you think “is that what I’m supposed to do?” or “will it make me happier?” even if you’ve decided that you don’t want children. While a small part of Jo is considering Gio in these thoughts, it is mostly self-pressure, with the influence of society and other women - being Zelda here, too. So when she’s listing these logical reasons why she shouldn’t have a child, she’s telling that to herself. She’s talking herself out of it, and as the end of the post hints at, it’s because she can get pregnant at that moment and she knows it.

But simultaneously her choice here shows that even while she is at her lowest (arguably even more than her depression because now, she’s giving it her all and it’s still not working), she will never choose to have children. You are not wrong in that it might give her life purpose, and that’s part of her thought process here too. She’s almost convinced herself that the act of bearing a child could give this pointless life she’s living meaning, and in doing so she could finally let go of her need for control and give in to her situation.

Like you said, there’s always the element of a mistake, but she tells Gio point blank “that she doesn’t make mistakes.” Of course all it takes is one, but this post is meant to show that she’s far too calculated and self possessed to give herself over not only to the intense emotions she’s experiencing at the beginning of the post, but also any sort of physical drive that might lead her to sleep with Gio when she knows not to.

She also very purposefully ends the post without ever giving in to him physically or emotionally. Even more, she’s still using selective vulnerability and sex to more or less manipulate him. Her balancing on the tip of her foot only to pull away is very indicative of this, insofar as she gives him just enough of herself without ever doing so completely. When she ultimately walks away with that little smirk on her face, its because she has truly talked herself off the ledge and reestablished some sense of self autonomy that she felt like she lost even in the act of considering a child. She’s realized that even in his world and for however much she has altered her life around his dreams and their situation, she still at least has that level of control over her own body and even his.

Y’all please just know I can write a whooooole ‘nother essay on the last paragraph so God help you if you made it through this one and imma shut up now…

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oh. my. god. the writing in your latest post!!!! it's just sublime! the insight into jo's head is so raw, i love it

Ahhh my Nonny friend! Thank you so much.

Jo has really been getting into my head this arc. Like little by little she’s been taking over my brain, and this post was the final nail in the coffin if you will, or peeling back that last layer of the onion to see what’s been festering beneath the surface of the flapper we met and fell in love with (which, also, the one Gio fell in love with too 👀).

This whole arc her life has been being stripped back, not only from the excitement and the glamor of the roaring 20s, but also her sense of self. The deceptive simplicity of their lives now (and the 1930s as a broader idea), has not revealed a better, calmer life for her the way it has for our other three characters.

She’s kind of known that from the beginning though, right? But she’s been putting all of her (considerable) strength into trying to make it work, because despite everything, Josephine wants to do what she perceives as the right thing. She wants to be loyal to her family and the people she loves, and she knows that she derives joy from their presence. Only this is fighting with her need to reestablish her sense of freedom and autonomy, in turn creating a toxic cocktail of love and guilt thats then amplifying the feeling of being trapped all the more. To the point that this is absolutely a woman who is very close to snapping…

But what does that breaking point look like if it happens where she is now? Feeling powerless and trapped with no one to blame for her misery other than herself? When she’s consumed by her past and her pain almost to a delirious degree?

Or what if she can find a way to “outsource” these feelings? To pin them on someone or something and justify her actions so that she doesn’t have to deal with the unpleasant knowledge that it’s coming from within? Welp. Welcome to arc two babes.

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Ok so I read the post on your thoughts on Gio and the American Dream and I hate to say it … as an immigrant, I understand him.

I also come from a culture where women tend to their male partner's needs and I don't believe he wants to turn Jo into a subservient wife. He fell in love with a lively, free, and wild Jo and loves that aspect of her.

At the end of the day she loves him too so why would she leave? I understand she doesn't like to be dependent of him but where else would she go? There are no parties or glamour, which was her whole thing, anymore. At least the farm offers stability in the economic crisis.

Point is, I understand Gio as an immigrant, but don't understand Jo as a woman.

BABES! We’ve got another one…

(As in me being touched and having no other means to say how much I love y’all takes other than to give them a standing ovation in GIF form).

But you know…there’s a whole lot to break down here, friend, especially about Jo. I think you know what that means! Under the cut we go….

First and foremost, I very much appreciate you saying you understand that aspect of Gio. I did in part write him as a commentary on the immigrant experience in America (filtered through his own personality/character of course), and so to know that is relatable means a lot to me. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell y’all his journey is far from over, and you can already see the cracks in his outlook beginning to form. Whenever Jo is depressed he says this quite vividly:

Because you are very, very correct. This isn’t about molding Jo into some subservient housewife, or even eroding those exact qualities that he loves in her. This is about Gio attempting to square what he’s been taught/believes will bring his life happiness and meaning with his own experience and emotions. It’s about the myth of the American dream and the perfect housewife and the very real struggle of those things existing as actual, lived realities.

Because at the root of it, Gio is amalgamating an understanding of his own family unit and what he knows he doesn’t want in this country. He has seen another methods of “making it” in America, and so he thinks if only he can make the “right” choices, he can avoid that, and become the respected and happy man that he wants to be.

Now onto Jo, boy oh boy, Jo….

I think one of the core misunderstandings here is that Jo wants stability. This is kind of the crux built into her desire for control and her never-ending failure to achieve it. She wants to control her surroundings, to make sure nothing and no one can hurt her, but she also wants to feel in a way that is hard to find in a stable, heavily domesticated life. On the flip side, despite whatever imaginary dream Gio has, he’s the same way. They both want a life filled with excitement and new experiences, new people and rushes of emotions. This is one of the ways they differ heavily from Antoine and Zelda.

Now on one level, this is simply the way Josephine is. She’s high energy, fun loving, and insatiable. But on a deeper level, this is tied into her experiences not only as a woman, but as a daughter. She has a brief moment of clarity in that last post where she realizes:

Now I have chosen not to go too in-depth on Josephine’s trauma, but you can see her lay out the course of events here and also her deep hesitation to any of it here. Josephine is still only a teenager in that second post. Her mother not only told her things like that (“this is the weight that prejudice and expectation have placed upon us”) but also “what do you want to be then? Some glorified maid to a man?” (Which, frankly, I can write another Ted Talk about the juxtaposition here, but I think ya'll can pull some threads).

So when you see Josephine’s struggle with control, this is heavily rooted in bodily autonomy. Now all things considered, Josephine has managed to make great strides toward reclaiming this and reasserting not only her sexuality, but also her sense of self in her body. Gio knows this. We see him recognize and respect it quite clearly in that last post. He’s been part of that process for her, and that only adds another element of love, trust, and safety between them.

But on a fundamental level, neither Gio nor Josephine has made the connection between that trauma, her own personality, and why she hates her life now so much:

Here’s the issue right now: Josephine doesn’t feel like she’s living her own life. We have seen how she would like to live in the 20s not just in the parties and glamour, but when she was managing bands. She wants to be fulfilled professionally, through helping people/places she believes in and bettering her own life by bettering theirs. That’s how she gets her joy, and that’s what she would chose to do if given the chance.

And right now, she does not feel like she gets to chose. You’re correct in that part of that is coming from the current economic situation. Again, she sees that herself here. She knows what demons are waiting outside her window, and how easily poverty can make them rearise. That only makes it worse. It doesn’t make the smell of bread (domestic security) any better or more comforting. It makes it bitter, because she didn’t chose it. She was backed into a corner by circumstance (and, as she can sense, by the choices men made for her without telling her), and now she feels like she can’t say no. That’s her ultimate trigger.

Now whether or not that loss of control is simply perceived, or should be offset by how “lucky” she is to be in a stable position in such precarious economic times, we might all have different options on. Even more, I’m sure each of us would answer differently for ourselves in that situation. I know I would. But for Josephine? Not only is this a life she will never find joy in, because even without her trauma, she is an ambitious, restless, and outgoing person with different goals for herself; but that added memory and pain makes her reaction to it all the more volatile.

Perhaps most importantly, Jo feels as though her life is being controlled again, whether by Gio, the reality of the world outside her window, or by her own guilt/love that makes her feel beholden to the people around her (just like it did to her mother). Because you’re right, she does love him. She wouldn’t leave because she doesn’t. If she leaves now, it would leave because she panicked, because she feels like she’s lost all the autonomy she worked so hard to regain and she’ll never feel the fulfillment she felt when she was successfully independent ever again. That’s the element I hope we can understand, even if it’s not what we would do.

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IF Jo runs off, I don't think it will be for long. Is she having a crisis, absolutely, but the world has changed immensely in the time she's been on the farm. She's not going to be able to make it on her smiles and sharp wit. Her struggle with perceived loss of control isn't going to improve by running away from "the trap". She is the the trap, it will follow her to the ends of the earth, much like her shadow.

That is all. Incredible. Stupendous read of her, beautiful analogy, marvelous writing. I am so happy and so touched.

Because like, yes. Exactly. Until Jo allows herself healing and vulnerability, she will always feel trapped. If not by others, then by her own emotions. The trickiest part of control is that it’s not just controlling everyone around you, is it? It’s about controlling them AND you. Even if everyone else falls in line, you still have to deal with yourself at the end of the day, and especially for Jo, she clearly does want things outside of her control (*cough cough* Gio).

Then on top of all of that, Josephine is deeply concerned with controlling her surroundings. She will not and can not feel safe without a “safety net.” And you’re right in that that is a rarity in the world she’s living in now. She absolutely knows that. We saw her realize it in this post. She knows the world she would be running into is precarious at best, and the safety of a home and family that she would be abandoning. To run away from that with no plan, no money, and no support would be dangerous and reckless.

Josephine isn’t stupid, and she certainly isn’t rash. This isn’t to say she can’t be, especially when backed into a corner, but it isn’t her nature. She’s cunning, calculated, and measured. Just like her mother. It’s only a matter of figuring out how to use that in her favor in a way that fits with the other parts of her nature, which are governed by a sense of perceived morality and loyalty for her family; OR if she can’t, and she’s backed too far into a corner first, then the rash side of her wins out despite everything she knows about the world and what running into it would mean.

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🍭💜🤍🩶🧸 for jo and gio >:) <3

Ya know, I thought I wasn’t gunna do any more of these but then I got this one and well, who can resist JoxJoe?

🍭 What's something they can never agree on (big or small)?

Ummmm, life? 🤣

Like really in a grand scheme, Gio and Jo do not share a vision for the future. It’s part of the reason they avoid talking about it so much, and what lies behind most of their fights. Both of them want to be the one to decide what the other does, and that idea of “power” insofar as who gets to make the decisions and who’s vision wins out is something that hangs over their heads at nearly all times. The crossroads of peace that they are currently at is because Jo has given herself over to his vision of the future, and much of their best times in New Orleans were because he was doing the same then too.

💜 How do they silently show love or affection towards the other?

I don’t think Gio and Jo are the type to spend much time in silence (oh what a difference to our other couple). They quite literally always have something to talk about or something to say, and are both usually full of energy and liveliness. Even in conversation I don’t think small smiles or looks would suffice, and they’re both people who show their affection through touch.

For both of them, but Jo in particular, she will especially show her affection by staying in bed with him in the morning. She’s someone who wakes and immediately rises to her feet, so to stay there in quiet and just let herself be held is the ultimate display of her love.

🤍 What is their favorite or most admired quality in the other?

So I think that while Jo and Gio have great difficulty agreeing on what they want to do with their lives together (ahem, see question one), they immensely enjoy the other person and want to be around them as much as possible. Both of them are very joie de vivre sort of people who enjoy living life to the fullest and have fun doing so together.

On a deeper level, Jo loves Gio’s infectious positivity and humor. He’s a guy who dreams big, and has no trouble talking about all the things he envisions with an infectious sense of wonder and charm (it’s following through on those ideas and making the right choices in pursuing them that he lacks). Josephine herself is more action oriented, so that wondrous, dreaming side of him is very enchanting to her (and also why she’s drawn to Zelda). She also loves how willing he is to talk about it. Emotional expression comes easily to Giorgio, and Jo admires him for it because she knows it’s a strength she lacks in herself.

Conversely, Gio admires how willing Josephine is to go after what she wants. She lets very little stop her, and does everything with optimism and vigor. Her optimism is particular is something he finds attractive, because even when she’s knocked down she’s able to stand upright and keep walking. It’s why her depression really triggered his guilt, because he finally saw a side of her that he didn’t know existed. But this in turn only strengthened that admiration as he realized that when she does stand up and keep walking, she does it totally and with self determination.

🩶 Which one apologizes first? How do they apologize?

Like actually says “I’m sorry”, owns up to their mistakes and explains themselves? Gio. Only Gio. Josephine will not apologize (although she’s ~kind of~ trying). A full apology is something she sees as a power grab, a moment of “giving yourself up” to that person and she simply will not do it. She has…other methods that she uses to show Gio she’s sorry 😂

🧸 BONUS! Include one of your favorite moments between them!

Y’all ready for another montage? Cue the music…

[aheathen-conceivably]

Did I get immensely distracted and do more picrew things? Possibly. So please have What’s in Their Bag? Modern Edition…

Josephine:

Always has mints because she definitely hasn’t been vaping due to stress and who’s two cell phones seemingly never stop ringing. Still keeps a coin purse because it was her mother’s even though there’s nothing in it and she thinks it’s old fashioned. Does she wear driving gloves because it makes her feel like a bad bitch? Absolutely.

Giorgio:

It’s giving 2010s hipster turned professional with a dash of metrosexual. Sure he carries a phone and a tablet but secretly has a thing for writing handwritten letters. Probably drives a Tesla and converted all his locks to electronic. He also definitely stopped to pick up that four leaf clover for luck when he thought no one was looking.

Antoine:

Custom ordered that pen and notebook for writing song lyrics and definitely keeps all his money loose in his bag even though it constantly gets tangled in the three pairs of earphones he has in there. Bought that keychain for himself and Zelda very much unironically years ago. Zelda lost hers and doesn’t even remember when.

Zelda:

Can’t find anything in her bag at any given time, especially since her scarf also serves as a blanket for sitting in the grass. Smaller bag is always full of loose shells and rocks she picks up and really needs to get a new phone but can’t seem to find the time. Only doesn’t have cigarettes because she steals them from Antoine’s bag when he isn’t looking, even though he keeps an extra pack for her. Will not get rid of her iPod for anything.

[aheathen-conceivably]

❤️ Darlington 5-Minute Ships ❤️

Well my lovelies, I have a new little tag game for you all (courtesy of the absolutely marvelous @simadelics and @thistleflower-sims ). Use the template below to put two of your favorite OC’s together (or more, if you can’t choose like me!) and tell us a little bit about their relationship.

I’m going to tag a few of my other dear mutuals, but everyone please feel free to do this and tag me as I would love to see! And if you do decide to give it a go, feel free to tag a few other folks to keep the game rolling!

Template and a bonus Ship below the cut 😘

@cowplant-snacks @simadelics @surely-sims @antiquatedplumbobs @sasaofastora @that-fannerd-with-the-glasses @thistleflower-sims @alainas-sims