4.18 Occultism

Pregnacy sat well on Veronica in the beginning. She got back to her chemicals as fast as she could.

 

“If I can come up with a cure for morning sickness, we’ll make millions!” she confided in Charles. He just smiled and nodded. He left that science stuff to his mom and wife.

Along the same vein, Zahra was up to her own experiments at the bistro, but they didn’t go quite as well.

 

When she’d exhausted her inspiration, Veronica headed to the porch step to pick up the paper. She waved to the mail lady and was met with a pair of squinted, suspicious eyes.

 

“What’s up her butt?” Veronica asked, scowling out the window as she joined Charles in the sitting room.

“Her?” Charles said. “I don’t really know. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to the mail man. Fabian handles the stuff that involves, you know, people.”

 

“Maybe she has PMS,” Veronica said. “At any rate, it’s not my problem. Let’s see who’s being stupid to whom in the news.”

 

A moment later she jumped to her feet and threw the paper on the floor. “What the hell is THAT?”

Charles jumped. “What is what?” Then he peered at the headline.

LOCAL WOMAN FOUND CONSORTING WITH OCCULT.

Beneath was a picture of Veronica kissing Charles… in their own hottub. In their all-together.

“Wow,” Charles said. “I knew this town didn’t like me that much, but I had no idea. If I’d realized that your name would be smeared just because you married me, I’d have–“

“Don’t you dare talk like that!” Veronica raged. “We weren’t bothering anyone! Someone is going to pay for this!”

“It’s a free country,” Charles said weakly. “They can print what they like, and obviously they think their readers want to see this. What can we do?”

 

“What can we do about what?” Zahra asked as she walked into the doorway. She was in desperate need of a shower, but the look on her dear son’s face made her forget all of that life trivia.

Veronica waved the newspaper under Zahra’s nose. “How is this legal? They come into our private space and take pictures for the newspaper? And Charles is an occult? They use that word like it’s an, an epithet!”

 

Zahra blinked at the article. “You know, dear,” she said, “things like this wouldn’t happen if you’d keep your clothes on where people can see you.”

 

“That is NOT the point and you know it!” Veronica cried. “This is harassment, and it’s racist to boot!”

“People out there are frightened of what they don’t understand,” Zahra said. “We’ve never cared what other people think in this house.”

“Oh, really? Well, damn it, I’ll show them. I’ll sue!”

Charles was aghast. “A lawsuit? Are you sure you want that kind of attention?”

“We already HAVE the attention,” Veronica snarled. “We might as well do something about it.”

 

Before Charles or Zahra could offer up any more thoughts on the matter, Veronica was on her way to the courthouse.

 

She was undaunted by the paperwork or the expensive lawyers hired by the newspaper. The case was clear. There was a law against hate speech on the books, after all, wasn’t there?

 

Hearings ran late into the night.

And in the end, she left alone, defeated, and out 600 simoleons in legal fees.

 

“The occult have never been classified under hate speech laws,” the judge said. “Occult isn’t a hate term. It’s just, well, occult.”

 

“Don’t say a word,” she warned when she dragged at last into the house. “Not one word.”

 

Soon she found a perfect place to vent her rage.

“You!” she screamed at the paparazzi lingering near her chemistry lab. “Maybe I can’t sue your pants, off, but this is our property. Get out before I kick your ass into next week.”

 

“It’s the news, don’t you get it?” the photographer retorted. “You can kick me out, but you can’t stop the news!”

 

“Then I’ll settled for kicking you out,” Veronica said, her voice now dangerously calm. “Leave.”

 

As he left, she said under her breath, “This is not over.”

———-

I’m not dead!

But hey, I hope none of you are either. Nobody seems to be posting much on the simblogs at the moment. I’m guessing it’s because this is the end of term for you students out there.

DragonWife, is the port to a new town going OK? Amhranai, is your move going all right?

I’m settled with my dear daughter at my parents’ place for another week while my husband finishes up teaching his last class. Our house is STILL not on the market, but soon. We’re promised it will be soon.

Sim celebrity points are funny. Charles picked up a random one at some pont. Then, when he proposed to Veronica in the park, *she* picked up two points. Then they each got a point for marrying another celebrity in public. So Veronica now has three points, and Charles has two. After they got married, Veronica was immediately disgraced for “Woohooing with an occult.” Oh, really?

It’s good to at least be able to get a post out. Someday I’ll even be able to play again 😛

0 thoughts on “4.18 Occultism

  1. Yay! An update!

    I like how indignant Veronica is about the whole thing. Poor Charles… "an occult"! I have to admit, though, I was hoping to see ghost baby this chapter…

    What was Zahra doing at the bistro to explode herself?

    I still haven't attempted the porting. I was trying to wait until I had time to really focus on it, but that hasn't been happening. There's been a lot of preschool, kindergarten and family birthdays and such going on. I think this is the only afternoon that I'm home all week! So, my game is still super laggy, but I have enough pics to post another few chapters before I catch up with myself.

    It sounds like the big move is going along well enough! Are you all ready to go?

  2. Dude. Pregnancy takes three days! At the detail I write, you just gotta wait! But I let you in on a secret that the next generation appears in the next chapter 🙂 :).

    Zahra had some kind of Mad Science opportunity at the bistro, but I now can't remember the excuse. I thought it was hysterical that Veronica was having this emotional scene with someone in explode-o-wear.

    I really understand about the life chaos. I haven't gotten to play in weeks. There's some hope that things have settled down enough in this transitional state with my parents that I'll be able to sneak some in. But I'd played so far ahead that I probably still have five more posts before I catch up anyway.

    In some sense, *I* have already gone. Our stuff is in transit. I'm living with my parents until the hubbie finishes teaching this semester and can head for Boston. I'm really close to my folks, and spending this time with them is great for me AND it's great for the grandchild bond. But I am really ready to actually get to Boston and get moving on the new life.

  3. That's true… and Veronica was pretty busy fighting city hall! Guess I'll just have to be patient. Oh, wait, is that a new chapter I see? Hahaha! Instant gratification!

    It's nice that you and your daughter get that downtime with your parents before the next phase. I imagine that they're pretty thrilled with it, too! Though I can understand your being anxious to get on with the move already. We're kind of looking for a new place, but not really, but kind of, but we need to fix up our house and I totally just want to make a decision either way and go for it!

  4. YOu're back, that's great! This sounds like you are still really busy, but hopefully get along well. Our move is technically over,most of our stuff now is where it's supposed to be. We now just have to clean up our old flat, remove the carpet and stuff like that.

    Paparazzi are awful! They just come into the sims' lives and do whatever they want to do, regardless of the sims' feelings. No wonder Veronica was pissed about this,but it's great that she had to courage to sue them. Too bad it didn't work and she lost some more money! Hopefully they won't be bothered too often when the baby arrives.
    (Am now going to check what happens in the next chapter!)

  5. Wow…I found this chapter to be kind of intense; it strikes on a lot of pretty profound issues that are (sadly) relevant to real life. Well done. 🙂

    I hate the stupid celebrity points and the paparazzi; they just make things difficult to me. But I love how much random local news you can get out of the newspapers! And I'm super excited about the baby coming soooon!! I'd already resigned myself to having to wait for ages before you'd be able to update to that point.

  6. Argh! I am so sympathetic! I have to say that I realized while we were looking at 8 and 10 homes a day that fantasy house hunting is MUCH more fun than the real thing. If I'm going to look for a new house, I'd rather be all in and get it done as soon as possible so I can start doing whatever it takes to live in the new place.

  7. I'm so glad to hear that you're at least in the new place. We had to tear out and replace all the carpet in our old place too. I hope things are calming down for you.

  8. I'm really glad you appreciated it.

    Charles's story has turned out to have a real racism theme, between the ghost-freakout he's been dealing with all his life and then Veronica being repeatedly disgraced for woohoo with an occult. I didn't immediately realize they meant Charles, but it's actually happened twice now. It's clear that her affection with him is causing it.

    That's kind of a serious theme for a sims story. I don't know where it's going to go, and I hope it rolls to some sort of satisfying conclusion.

  9. Well, you even have a house to sell, so that's even more work than our flat. So how's it going with you now? Your old house is not on the market yet, but you're already staying with your mother.Have you also partly moved to your new place yet?

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