Eureka! 

The final push for Death Fish and Life Fruit.

Arcturus read a gardening book to Emily at bedtime. He tried to explain what he was attempting with his resurrection, by way of a picture book. Emily was like, "So this plant will finally turn you into a man?" and Arcturus flipped through the book about an anthropomorphic pack of seeds and was like, "Uhhhhh,... sure. I don't really... Hey, wait, was that an insult?"

"Ok. And what do you do next, Dad?... Water it?... Ohhhhh."

After she fell asleep, he went out to the lake. Now that his fishing skills were top notch, he was capable of sacking the legendary death fish. There's only one place in town you can catch it and there's a "No Fishing" sign there. I don't think you can't get arrested for fishing though.

Sirens in the distance. Arcturus looks around nervously.

Step one complete.

Back at home, Arcturus walked right up to Betty and held the fish in her face. "Remember when you kept complaining about all the hours I spent watching that fishing show? Hmmm?" She rolled her eyes. "Honey, if you told me this fish was going to make you come back to life, I still wouldn't think it was worth watching several hours of frikkin 'Fishing Fracas'." And she was right. Every episode was quite literally the same.

The next morning was all about the garden.

To grow a life fruit, you have to search the world for the right seed to plant. This requires zooming in to the ground as far as you can and actually scrolling through the entire world, looking for a seed that, in game, is nearly the size of an actual seed. It's very annoying. Once you find a seed, you have to collect it and plant it. The seeds are labeled things like "special" and "unique" so you don't even know what they'll grow into until you plant them and they mature.

After many searches and random plantings, Arcturus found a life fruit. He also found a money tree. Next time someone tells Arcturus that money doesn't grow on trees, he'll laugh. Because that person is an idiot now.

The life fruit plant is near the chimney. 

The money tree is that big ball of trash on a tree trunk.

The Easter Bunny gnome sits and waits, patiently...

It's arrived. "That was certainly interesting," the gnome thinks.

Step two complete.

Now with the two ingredients necessary, Arcturus had to learn how to bake the food that would make him a real boy again. He took a trip to the bookstore and bought the recipe for Ambrosia. It was about $30 to buy that single recipe. It wasn't a sheet of paper though, as you would expect, but a full book.

Not one to follow a recipe while cooking, Arcturus set out to memorize the entire thing before starting. He could handle no distractions. Betty was happy for him, at least.

"Fish and fruit,... fish and fruit..." *closes book*
"Fish... and... damnit, Betty, you distracted me!"

After memorizing the recipe, he sat back and all this kind of garbage flew around his head. Words and numbers, I guess. He was enlightened. A new man. A renaissance man.

Pictured: Arcturus plugging into the matrix or something.

Arcturus hit the kitchen after all the haze around his head dissipated. He threw the recipe in the trash because he didn't need that anymore and took the death fish and life fruit out of the fridge. He got right to work, chopping everything up and filling a gigantic pan. Then, he put the giant pan in the oven and after a few minutes, pulled a little plate out with a small portion of food on it. What happened in that oven?

It's garnished and everything. This oven is special.

"This tastes like garbage, Betty."

After eating copius amounts of "Ambrosia", Arcturus was like, "Alright, enough of that. I feel like becoming a solid now." So, he stood up and *poof*, he was a solid. Betty's immediate reaction was to put a fairy spell on him to make him cold. She had been waiting a year to play that trick on this guy and it truly did not disappoint.

Emily walked into the room and was like, "Finally. Now I don't have to tell my friends at school that my dad haunts my house." Arcturus laughed, "That was cool... Alright, that was cool..."

"Emily, do you know who I am?"... "Ay-yi-yi."

"I'm glad you're back. That was annoying, to say the least."

Arcturus took a shower. He smelled like a corpse.

A Doll Nightmare 

Arcturus has been dead for a year and everyone's getting a little tired of his spirit. In town and in the real world, I suspect. But, whatever. At least he feels comfortable wearing his Christmas sweater around again (Remember he died in a Christmas sweater and ghost sweaters aren't easy to come by.)

It was Emily's birthday and game design dictated that Arcturus needed to carry Emily to her cake. Betty was washing dishes when Arcturus shouted, "Hey! Betty! Turn around so we can do this!" Betty dropped a dish and it shattered. "W-w-w-who said that?" Arcturus rolled his eyes.

It's happening!

Swinging her in for the blowout.

*fart noise*

Cross-eyed.

Arcturus got bored, cracked open a book.

Still cross eyed? ... Uh oh.

Send that cross eyed loon outside to eat her cake!

(I wrote the caption for this next photo a while ago and when I came back to edit this post, I was confused as to what it meant. A joke might be there but I'm no longer seeing it.)

There are two cakes?

In the backyard, there was a stirring. It was close to the house, right outside Betty and Arcturus's bedroom window where Emily used to spend most of her free time with her doll. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found there. Emily's doll, sent by that mysterious uncle, was up and moving around. It was his birthday too, apparently, and now he was the size of a boy.

He broke into the house and took a casual stroll into the bathroom. A doll on a mission.

Emily was in the bathroom so this doll is a pervert. She took it in stride though and they talked for a while... about colors, of course. (Imagine a world where every conversation you had, somebody brought up colors as a discussion topic and that's what living in Riverview is like.) 

Emily: I can't believe you're walking arou-

Doll: ...but what about blue though!?

Emily: Ohhhhhhh jeez (rubbing forehead) I mean,... y'know... it's fine?

Maybe Emily knew all along that this doll would become a human like creature. Ok, I just thought of this: I hope she can marry him one day.

Hushed doll whispers:"Your mom's asleep though."

Emily went into her parent's bedroom to change her clothes. They keep kid clothes in there because this house has only one dresser. The doll just watched her. Watched and waited. Then, he walked out the door and out of the house. Emily didn't know where he went so she played some make-believe for a while. Her real world just wasn't fantastic enough to satisfy her imagination. Here she is pretending to be some kind of loser:

"...and the little monster asked the princess 'What about blue though?"

Hours later, Emily was getting tired of waiting around for her new friend to come home.

"Where have you been all night?"
"I was out."

Who's creepier here?

Ok, he turns back into a doll at bedtime.

The next morning, the doll was still in doll form. Emily found Arcturus sitting in the kitchen. I don't think he moved since the birthday party, actually. "Dad. Why are you still a ghost? It's been a year, you know."

"Also, your Bill Cosby sweater and constant 'Ghost Dad' references
are making me uncomfortable at this point."

Later that night...

Still fishing... still trying.

Gardening 

Arcturus got a request from Akiko Hauler to grow some food for her. Fresh ingredients, quite seriously. The message was:

Akiko Hauler is trying to prepare a special recipe at home, but insists upon using only fresh homegrown ingredients. Unfortunately, Akiko Hauler doesn't know how to garden!

Either she's lazy or she doesn't realize that "gardening" in this world is as simple as throwing a seed at the dirt. But, she's paying out for this and Arcturus harvests more stuff than he can shove in the trashcan, so he'd do it.

Everything a Sim can grow has a quality assigned to it, from 'low' to 'perfect'. Akiko would only accept five things that were 'perfect'. I'm not even sure it was established what type of plant she wanted though. I suppose this special recipe just had "five perfect plants" listed.

Days later, Arcturus managed to harvest five plants that would be worthy of Akiko Hauler's salad. They were a mix of apples, wolfsbane and red toadstools. He got on his bike, plants in pocket and started to search town for her. He eventually caught up with her behind a restaurant. He really is good at just finding people.

Spaceship. Parked.

I couldn't get that other woman out of the shot.

Akiko had put on some weight since the last time Arcturus saw her. But he also died since the last time she saw him, so there were some surprises all around. Arcturus gave her the fresh ingredients, accepted a few dollars as monetary compensation and then she ran away to make that "special recipe". "It didn't look like she needed to be making more food," he said. "That's sexist," I noted.

Arcturus went home and resumed working on his garden. Within a few hours, he had finally reached level 10 of the gardening skill. 

Arcturus has accomplished an amazing feat of botany and agricultural science! Few gardeners can boast produce that tastes as fresh and looks as good as Arcturus's harvest. Well done!

Whoa. What praise! Maybe Arcturus should go get those plants back from Akiko or at least charge her extra. Those plants were basically divine creation.

With gardening out of the way, Arcturus looked back towards increasing his fishing skills. He needed to get better at it. Fast. One way to increase your fishing skill is by watching TV. There is a dedicated fishing channel, as it turns out. Great. Don't even have to go outside anymore! He sat down and watched it for an entire day. Betty stared at him for a few hours. I think she wanted him to look after Emily while she went to work.

That tv show is telling him so much.

Arcturus chose not to do that.

Will someone just take her inside, at least?

How A Man Comes Back To Life. 

When I first murdered Arcturus late last year as a loophole to achieving one of my personal goals for 2013 ("write 50 blog posts or until Arcturus dies"), I would've never guessed that he'd still be a ghost 8 months later. But the conditions of his return are, honestly, pretty demoralizing. I knew it was possible for Arcturus to become human again after his death but I didn't realize how complicated it was. Unfortunately, judging by how often I play this game, reviving him has the potential to take, uhhhh... (*checks calendar*) ...yeah, forever.

Technically, all Arcturus has to do is eat some Ambrosia and to make Ambrosia he will need two ingredients: deathfish and life fruit.

Finding a deathfish requires a fishing skill level of 10. Being able to grow a life fruit requires a gardening skill level of 10. Arcturus is at level 1 in both of these. They're not that easy to increase.

To kick off this journey, Arcturus went down to the blown-out industrial part of town to fish. Catching a deathfish wasn't even on his mind. You can't even find them anywhere outside of a graveyard lake. He just needed to learn how to fish first. So he spent a day just reeling in some tiny
pieces of garbage.

This photo might make it seem like he's catching a fish of significant size, but that's not true. His line leads somewhere else. That fish is jumping out of the water to laugh at him.

Fish: "I'm going to go tell this ghost he sucks."
*swims fast toward the surface, jumps out of the water*
Fish: "YOU SUCK, DUDE!"
*splashes back into water*
Friend: "Did you do it?"
Fish: "Yah. He looked sad."
Friend: "Damn... That's cool, dude. That's cool."

That night, Arcturus read a book about gardening in bed. He went outside and, by light of the moon, started planting some seeds he had in his pocket. I really won't let him waste a minute in this quest.

The next morning, there were already some plants. And a goddamn tree!

...hey, wait... maybe this won't take so long after all.

Meanwhile, Betty found Emily behind the house playing with that doll. How in the world did she get back there by herself?

I don't know how that doll got outside either but I couldn't get anyone to carry it back in. Which means that Emily is going to be spending a lot of time behind the house whenever she gets in the mood to do something with her time outside of the crib.

In other news, the Sims 4 character creator came out this past week. So, I decided to see what Arcturus would look like if he were in the new game:

The Sims 3.

The Sims 4.

Oh! He's handsome!

I gave him three traits: Good, Gloomy and Goofball. Seemed appropriate.

Ghost Tales 

Arcturus was living the afterlife... y'know?... Do you get it now?

He no longer had a job, of course. Nobody would call a ghost to get rid of the ghosts in their house and nobody would hire a transparent ghoul wearing Christmas attire for any other job. So, he spent all his time with Emily. He had no problem with that.

After teaching Emily how to walk, it was time to teach her how to talk. This meant sitting down with her and just speaking, hoping that maybe she would pick up some things.

"Then, the Reaper took your Dad's soul, honey."

Can you say, "Daddy begged the man for a job?"

Some nights, Arcturus visited his magic shop. It was just about the only place in town where he could feel comfortable outside of home, because this was also a place you could expect to find some freaks. Arcturus found that his friend, Rainer, had apparently quit while he had been dead. The new employee was Cherry Kanto. (Wait. If Arcturus owns this place and was dead, who hired Cherry? I guess it was Betty.) Cherry was an old lady. She had seen a lot in her life so, upon introduction, she didn't even flinch at Arcturus's condition.

"You're a ghost." "You're almost a ghost."

But, the turnaround was quick. Cherry Kanto died the week Arcturus met her and the day after her death, Kimberly Chappel was working. There is always someone there to fill in the position. Not like there are multiple employees either. Only one employee at a time, never any search needed to find the next one.

Love is in the air, for some reason. This is weird on both of their parts.

The love died quickly though.
"Oh! You have a daughter? Whoa. I can't get past that, bruh."
"I have a wife, ma'am."

Back at home, Betty was pretending that strange doll could talk. Confusing Emily for a lifetime, I'm sure.

"Mom. Hi. I can talk now. Dad told me sad stories today."

When Arcturus came home, Betty put Emily to bed and threw the doll in the corner. "It's time to try this, Arcturus. Things are about to get weird."

Betty's face when Arcturus says,
"The new girl at the store fell in love with me briefly."

"I didn't feel a thing."

Hey, how is he wearing pajamas? Where did he find ghost pajamas?

"That was fun, I guess," Betty said. "Did either of us get anything out of that," Arcturus asked.

He's Back!... and Only Slightly Better Than Dead. 

Betty had been researching for some time and could not find out how to resurrect the dead. But where magic fails, science succeeds. Riverview's science center, The Soil and Water Research Facility, was the last hope. Betty called a babysitter for Emily and paid the scientists a visit with her pile of ashes.

"Soil and Water Research  Facility" , the sign reads.
In smaller font: "We Resurrect Corpses."

"Yeah, of course we bring dead people back to life."
"Are there any downsides to the procedure?"
"Yeah, a big one."
"Ok, don't tell me what that is. Make it a surprise."

"Surprise!" he says as Betty barfs.

Arcturus was back but he wasn't a solid. Betty feigned enthusiasm, "Ohhhh, thaaaanks, everyone." This wasn't the ideal result but she had read about turning ghosts into humans in her months of research, so having a ghost to work with was a good start, at least. The ghost-to-human conversion process wasn't as simple as the dead-person-to-ghost conversion though, so transparent Arcturus was going to be around for a bit. A ghostbuster living as a ghost. Funny.

After a peckish make out sesh on the "science patio", Betty drove the spirit home.

Betty went to bed. Arcturus floated over to Emily's room.

Emily took a photo of her dad and posted it to Instagram:
"Am I seeing things? #dafuq? #ghostdadremake?"

Still wearing the Christmas sweater he died in.

Arcturus held Emily for a bit (somehow) then used his ghost powers to make Emily take her first steps. I bet Betty was real happy she missed it.

I just now realized that this is a video of an electrocution victim's ghost teaching a winged infant how to walk. Life simulation..