#also thank you molly for jumpstarting this idea for me

[adelaidedrubman]

ok fc5 mutuals if your oc’s story was told in eden’s gate knockoff veggietales what vegetable would they be. i’ll start jestiny would be a red onion due to her #layers

[just---keep---simming]

The Pancakes - Autumn 2

As we drop in on the Pancakes for their second autumn, we find them kicking things off with an immediate birthday celebration. It's time for Adrienne to become a teenager! While Axel Wood celebrated his teen birthday at the end of summer, Adrienne is the first Sim who was actually born into the Townies save to reach adolescence, so this seems like a bit of a milestone.

And here she is! Adrienne has taken after Bob in her colouring, but I can see some of Eliza in her features for sure. She keeps her childhood penchant for red and goes bold with a dark red lip. She's actually quite an interesting-looking Sim (not conventionally pretty, definitely not ugly) and a dark lipstick really flatters her, so while perhaps unusual for her age, we're going with it. Adrienne adds the self-assured trait to her childhood vegetarian trait - I randomly roll most traits as personality and storyline guidance or prompts, unless I have a specific idea for a Sim I want to follow, so Adrienne turns out to be both confident and moral. I also randomise aspirations for the same reason, although I'll tinker with things if I feel they don't fit, but Adrienne rolled Fabulously Wealthy. Given her mother, Eliza, has a wealth-related aspiration too (Mansion Baron), this felt appropriate.

Having a teenager in the house called for a bedroom makeover. Adrienne's purple, girly kid's bedroom is overhauled into a sunset-coloured retreat.

She's delighted with her new room and thanks her mother with a hug. I wonder if these two will remain close, or if the natural boundary-pushing of adolescence will test Eliza's strictness and need for order?

Rotations start on a Sunday morning for me, so Adrienne takes her one day of weekend and heads to the library in Willow Creek, where she comes across Bjorn. She is blissfully unaware of Eliza and Bjorn's affair prior to her birth, or that her paternity was actually under question for a time, and Bjorn doesn't enlighten her. He simply introduces himself as a good friend of her parents.

Then, Adrienne gets a jumpstart on her homework before her first day at school, and also meets Angela Pleasant.

The next morning, as with Axel in the Zest's last post, we head off to Adrienne's first day of school with her, where she kicks off her high school journey by claiming and decorating a locker. She picks a dark academia theme - girl's a fan of The Secret History, you see.

Class starts and literally every single student is on their phone. I feel like the Sims team is trying to make a very heavy-handed point with the choice to have Sims of all ages obsessively pull out cellphones all the time.

At lunch, Adrienne meets Molly, who she likes, and Wolfgang, who she does not.

Like when she was younger, though, Adrienne proves to be a dedicated, hard-working, and very academic student. This girl will be heading to university for sure! After eating her lunch, she spends the rest of the break time studying for the exams that will take place at the end of the week.

Let's not forget that she also wants to be fabulously wealthy, though. The real progress towards that will start once she graduates university into a prestigious and high-paying job of her choice, but there's certainly no harm in taking some baby steps right away. Adrienne signs up for a barista job that will have her working for two hours every morning before school.

This has been a very Adrienne-focused update, but Bob and Eliza are still here, of course. Eliza has had relationship-related fears ever since her indiscretions with Bjorn, and although Bob doesn't know about that, Eliza is still working hard to try and feel secure in her marriage. She talks her fears over with Bob, which helps, but doesn't dispel them completely. She'll need to keep having these conversations with him regularly.

Conscious of spending a lot of time on her typewriter, working on novels, or in the office doing the same thing, Eliza also takes up a casual jogging habit. She's no fitness guru, but enjoys a light jog around the gorgeous autumn streets of Willow Creek.

The trees are turning red and gold in the neighbourhood, making for a charming scene as the barge chugs past in the canal.

At Adrienne's next day at school, she meets and starts getting to know Darling Walsh.

The two of them hit it off, and Darling joins her at home after school, playing games on Eliza's computer while Adrienne does her homework.

But while Adrienne is making new friends from school, we've not seen anything of Axel! Annoyingly, it looks like you need a mod to choose classmates otherwise teen Sims your Sim already knows won't tend to turn up at school at all. I might get the mod or we might say Adrienne and Axel go to different high schools - regardless, Adrienne fixes the lack of Axel in her life by meeting him at Thriftea. Is it a date? Are they just friends? Adrienne isn't actually sure how she feels just yet, but we do know Axel has a hopeless crush on Marion Sparacinco, so we'll have to wait and see.

When Harvestfest rolls around for the Pancakes, Eliza as always goes all out on the decor.

And Bob goes all out on the food, preparing a tofurkey for Adrienne to enjoy and fruit pie for dessert.

Father and daughter have a good relationship at this stage. Bob is proud of Adrienne's work ethic, even if he feels both Eliza and her have goals in life that are somewhat shallow and materialistic.

Work ethic Adrienne certainly does have though, and if she succeeds in becoming fabulously wealthy, it will be through that hard work. She quickly proves herself one of the top students at her high school, and loves going every day. She aces the exam at the end of the week too, of course.

Axel isn't half so dedicated at school work as she is these days - his attention is far more on the football team than his homework - but she still enjoys his company. They meet at the gym in Oasis Springs after school one day - Axel's choice this time.

A yoga class together could be a date? Or could still be just friends? Axel turns her down for prom, so that might answer that question, although Adrienne may also not give up so easily.

Adrienne heads along to prom alone, perfectly happy in doing so, and dressed the best of any Sim there. Boyfriends can wait - Adrienne is having a great time as a teenager so far without one; she's crushing her school work, she's making loads of new friends, and she loves her part-time job.

Meanwhile Bob and Eliza make the most of an evening home alone!

And that brings us to the end of autumn for the Pancakes! Bob and Eliza continue to work on their relationship, but Adrienne was definitely the star of the show this season. Deservedly so - I think she's a great first child of the save, with a strong and cohesive personality emerging as she's getting older. I wonder what winter will bring for her and her parents?

[owlaholic68]

Lumberjanes - Molly

Y’all, sometimes I re-read Lumberjanes comics and remember that they really did that. They really did give us a hero for kids with bad families to look up to. This Sunday is just Loving Molly day apparently. Spoilers for up to Issue #44 (end of the Time Shenanigans arc) under the cut and warnings for mentions of bad families:

First off, let’s not forget all of the diverse and loving families they do give us:

[ID: a page from Issue 37 showing the Lumberjanes and their parents and families. Molly is shown alone. End id]

Like, I’d die for Jo’s dads and Ripley’s abuela. But the highlight of the Parent’s Day/Time Shenanigans arcs (Issues 37- 44) is the exploration of Molly’s story, which has been hinted at since the very beginning of this long series (remember in issue #1 where she looks terrified at the prospect that Rosie might call their parents? Or all of the times they’ve talked about time being slower at camp and Molly looking so relieved?). 

Yeah, so then Parent’s Day finishes up. And Molly has apparently given her parents the wrong address so they don’t come (or she had no idea they were coming and they just didn’t care enough to actually know where their daughter was). 

[ID: two pages from Issue 40 where Molly’s parents show up to camp. Molly’s mom starts berating her for lots of things but is dragged away by Rosie, and her dad follows. Molly is visibly very upset. End id]

Like, Lumberjanes normally doesn’t make me ugly-cry. But Molly’s arc does, because there’s so much going on here, and it’s so important for kids with families like this to see that they’re not alone and that this isn’t okay. In her parent’s eyes, everything Molly does is wrong. She’s too much of a tomboy, she hangs around with people her parents don’t approve of, she’s too big (we’ll get to that in a sec), and she doesn’t want to follow the path her parents have set out for her. 

And the Time arc. Oh, the time arc. Kicking it off with a bang, and this dream:

[ID: two pages from Issue 41 showing Molly dreaming of her mother. Her mom is dragging her along yelling at her for being late and then tries to shove her into the mold of a woman that is much smaller than Molly, with Molly insisting that she can’t fit and that she’s trying to be smaller. End id]

This is actually not the first that Molly feeling “too big” has come up, because it was mentioned briefly in the Roller Derby arc when trying on roller skates. And this fits into everything we’ve heard about Molly not fitting in with what her family wants her to be. It’s so heart-breakingly relatable, because this comic is geared towards girls and young tweens, who all will or have felt too big, too tall, too whatever. Add that to parental pressure, and Molly quickly becomes one of the most relatable and impactful characters of the series. 

Which of course jumpstarts the whole plot of the Time Arc, which is Molly doing some shady stuff to try to slow down time even further so she never has to leave. (Is there also an implied thing here that Rosie maybe also came from a bad family and never actually left camp? Because there’s definitely a storyline with the Bear Woman that keeps coming back, that maybe Molly really could sacrifice everything and stay to protect the forest. But anyways...)

[ID: two pages from Issue 44. Molly talks about not fitting in with her family and them not making room for her. A picture of the family is shown with Molly awkwardly standing off to the side and looking uncomfortable. Mal and the other Lumberjanes reassure Molly that she’s still wonderful and nice and that they love her anyway. They have a group hug around Molly. End id]

And of course the most important lesson here: that despite the way your family feels about you, you are still amazing and wonderful and worthy of love, and you should never change. Even if you’re a kid reading this who isn’t in Molly’s position, you probably know somebody who is, unfortunately.

You might think that this gets rather dark for a kids’ comic series, but it’s also important to talk about in a way that kids can understand. I give so much thanks to all of the writers who decided to tackle this difficult topic in a way that is going to help so many people. And I’ve remembered why I enjoy the Lumberjanes so much, even as an adult. There’s just so much to it. Like, don’t even get me started on Barney being nonbinary, or Jo being trans, or Mal and Molly’s relationship, or Ripley’s sense of adventure and energy, or April’s difficulties in navigating interpersonal relations. It’s just all so wonderful and I’m glad I’ve found this series.