What Are The Mengsks Up To These Days?

It's been a while since checking in with the Mengsk family (over 18 months!) and they haven't aged a minute, let me tell you. Frozen in time while I didn't play the game. Go figure.

...

Emily woke up and laid in bed. "I'm nearly 20 and my best friend is a doll come to life," she thought. The realization was crippling and she laid in bed for another two days. On the morning of the third day, she decided that would make a real friend. All she had to do was lure a kid from school to her house and then throw a water balloon in their face. That's one way to get someone to like you. It helps if they too are a "prankster" because they understand.

First signs of depression: Laying in bed, thinking about bed.

Sims read books for breakfast. Hey, that sounds like what a robot would do!

After going to school, a message popped up on the screen asking me if Clyde Foreman could come over to hang out. I'm not Clyde's dad so I don't care what he does after school but Emily was bringing a boy home so I was "geeking out." Then the kid walked onto the property and I thought, "Who is this little dork dude?"

Homework confuses him. Classic meathead.

*door crashes open*, Emily smiles a bit and mumbles, "Oh boy. Here we go."

Clyde struggled with his homework and Emily just flew through it. When her imaginary friend came home from... wherever he was, he asked Emily how she was progressing in her quest to make him a real boy. He was jealous of Clyde who had the clear advantage of not being 100% cotton. Clyde stared at Emily as she held a conversation with thin air. When she snapped back to reality, she told Clyde to join her in the other room because he was taking too long with his homework and she had better things to do.

"Is there a desk in here or..." / "Just sit on the floor, meatball."

Hours rolled by as Emily experimented. Clyde finished his work and thought it wise to leave Emily as she suffered through what seemed to be a psychotic break. Clyde ran straight into Betty as soon as he left the lab.

Betty: "Who are you?!"
Clyde: "Hi, Mrs. Mengsk. I'm Cly-"
Emily: *yelling from lab* "Clive, would you get back in here?"
B: "Can I try out some magic on you, Clive?"
C: "...what?"

"Get cold, ya little shithead!"

"Is there more to this spell?" / "Are you cold? / "Yes." / "No."

Clyde complained that he was too cold and Betty was pleased. It was getting late and he was clearly tired. "Can I get a bite to eat for the road, Mrs. Mengsk?" Betty ignored the request and pushed the front door open, "Ya gotta go home, bud." Emily smiled in the other room. This is no way to make real friends, Emily.

As Clyde walked down the path from the house, he passed Arcturus coming home from work. 

Arcturus saw Betty at the front door and asked, "Was that Clyde I just walked by?" Betty grabbed the dishtowel off the counter nearby and slung it over her shoulder. "That was just some little meatball. I dunno."

Arcturus sat at the kitchen table and listened to Betty talk about her day as she washed the dishes. Her day was all about spells. Once everything was clean, Emily crashed out of the lab. "I need to get some stuff at our store." (Remember, Arcturus owns a magic store? You may not because I wrote that post in 2013.) Arcturus asked to tag along because he needed to collect his weekly $10,000 from the current manager. Aleister's Elixers and Sundries has a new manager almost every month. The employee turnover rate is incredible.

Emily and Arcturus hailed a cab. Arcturus squirmed in his seat the entire ride. He's never been one for cars, y'know. Green as grass, he is.

"Is this an... Uber?" "No." (ed. note: I'll leave it up to you to decide who's saying what.)

"Right where I left it. Time for a shake down."

Once inside, Arcturus and Emily gathered the items she needed for her lab work which was mostly just magic dust. Arcturus told Emily to head home cause he was going to hang out with "the new guy". Emily walked out the door with her goods without paying. The man at the cash register started to speak up about the robbery but Arcturus went over to him and said that he shouldn't interfere in company business. The cashier was very confused.

Arcturus spent the night getting to know his new employee. Like, really getting to know him. His name was Federico Walker and he was a "consignment specialist". Self-proclaimed, perhaps. He had one day wandered into this empty store and just started running it. The last guy, who I'm pretty sure was a werewolf, must have run away.

They danced,

they laughed,

they cried,

and then Federico lost his mind.

Eventually Arcturus got tired of Federico and sat down in his throne, watching the fire. Federico continued to ham it up and Arcturus was beginning to suspect that he was kind of a dope. Around 11:45pm, Arcturus went home. Federico was happy with life, in general.

"I think I love him."

"Pssst! Hey, Arcturus! Look at me!"

A Night of Wonders 

The first night back from China, there was a full moon. The zombies started to pull themselves out of the ground around the house. The family was walking up the path to the house when the concrete under Arcturus's feet began to shift with the emergence of a monster. "Oop," he said as he did a little sidestep to avoid it. A hand popped out of the ground, Emily casually kicked it and it rolled out into the yard. "Next time, try not buying a house built on a cemetery?," Betty said, raising her eyebrows.

*I am still not a fan of the zombies and the green light the full moon casts on the game, so I tried to speed through the night. I feel like I disable the full moon every time I play this game but it never takes.*

There were two consequences to fast-forwarding through the night

First, I noticed a crunching sound once I went back to regular speed. The garden had a few zombies in it, crouched over. I zoomed in and they were eating the plants. They had basically eaten everything by the time I noticed, including all the life fruit that I had used to make Arcturus come back to life. They had eaten the entire money tree too. There was no evidence of it left. They ate the stump and roots and then, I guess, planted grass in an act of kindness.

This dead dude got stuck on some weeds.

"Haha. What a dope!"

Arcturus had to personally ask each zombie to leave the property because there was no mass "stop eating my garden" option. By the time the sun rose, there was only one "monster" left. He stood up and turned to Arcturus. It was Chris Schafer, an adult human man. He had taken advantage of the zombie invasion to get a free dinner! "Oh, gimme a break, buddy!", Arcturus complained.  Chris wiped his mouth and walked away. "Tree eater!" Arcturus shouted after him. He turned back to the garden with his hands on his hips, stared at the mess for a bit, and then shouted again down the street, "You owe me big time for this, Chris!"

The other consequence to fast forwarding through the night was that Emily came out of her bedroom the next morning as a teenager. She hadn't even told anyone she was ready to grow up. Arcturus was like, "Are you the new babysitter?" but when he looked into those crossed eyes, he knew. The jig was up. Nice try, Emily. 

Emily's imaginary doll friend had also grown up. When exactly does this imaginary friend go away? Well, never, I don't think. In fact, I looked it up and he can, as I had once hoped, be turned into a real person. This is certainly the direction I will be heading with this character. 

"Emily. Emily. Emily! Stop eating. We have things to do."

Getting to work on this immediately after breakfast, Emily went into Arcturus's secret lab and started making potions. It will take her a while to find the right one but she will get there. She will eventually fall in love with this imaginary doll man and have a baby with it. I can promise you that.

"You better be making that potion right, Emily!"

After some of the chemicals she was mixing exploded, Emily went down to her dad's former place of employment (Doo Peas Corporate Tower!) to take some chemistry classes and maybe apply for an internship as a scientist. She was so committed to this potion she was trying to make that she didn't bother to straighten her hair, clean her face or put on new clothes after the explosion blew them off of her.

Emily: "I'm here for some classes."
Secretary: "Ok, I can help you." *dials 9-1-1*

Meanwhile, back at home, Betty had set a fire by leaving some food in the oven. Arcturus ran into the room and pulled at his hair a bit. Classic. The fire alarm was blaring. Betty crouched down and screamed. When all was nearly lost, the doll walked in to put it out. What did Betty and Arcturus see when this was happening? Is the doll willing himself into existence without Emily's help?

A floating fire extinguisher?
The house had chosen to save itself this time.

The doll walks away proud.
"Hi, Sarah."
"Another fire?"
"Yeah, it just went out."

"ARCTURUS!!!"

Arcturus is getting old but he still doesn't seem to be changing as a person. 

Taking A Trip - Part Two 

Arcturus and co. were in China, if you remember. Shang Simla to be exact. The first thing Arcturus did after arriving at the hotel was check the board of local adventures he could go on. This was the same type of 'board of opportunities' that he had dealt with when he went to France by himself years ago. Remembering how lame that French "tomb raiding" stuff was, I chose to skip the options here (all of the options were about tomb raiding). I wanted to know if traveling had any other benefits to it outside of the exploration gag. (Spoiler: It definitely doesn't.)

The Mengsk family went inside to settle and eat some breakfast. It was a good thing they didn't pack any bags though because there was nowhere to put them safely. There were no rooms, no closets, no personal space at all. Just lines of beds in each room and hallway. There was also no management or cleaning service and you had to cook your own food. Was this a hotel or an abandoned building with working plumbing?

Arcturus was walking around the abandoned building in his pajamas when he ran into self-proclaimed "explorer", Alain Lefebvre. Alain told Arcturus where all the hot hangouts were in the fake Forbidden City. "Definitely hit up the general store. The owner, Xi Yuan, has everything from bikes to dried food. 'General stuff'. Well, garbage, mostly." When he started to stray off-topic and talk about how great the tombs were in his French hometown of Les Champs de Sims, Arcturus knew Alain was not to be trusted. Those tombs were pretty crap, guy.

"Also, Wu Xio is a racist." *raises hands* "Hey, you didn't hear it from me!"

Betty and Emily walked by and pulled Arcturus from his conversation. It was time to head into town and see what what was really going on there. They found a car outside with the keys in it and just stole it. It may have been Alain's. Betty did... not... care, alright?

The hotel. Arcturus is in this photo. Can you spot him?

On our way!

Inside the walls of the city, there really was little to do. No wonder Alain had talked highly of the general store. It was just about the only thing open to visitors! Emily asked what they were going to do first. Arcuturus looked at all the private homes and said, "I guess we go to the general store and then go back to the United States?" Emily sighed. "I'm missing my friends at school for this?" Betty was like, "Honey, what is with you and these friends at school? They just can't be that great."

"The terracotta army is a Chinese thing, right?"

There were actually a few shops lined up. It was called "Shang Simla Market" and it had a food merchant, a book merchant, and a relic merchant in addition to that general store everyone was talking about. The first place they stopped was the relic merchant, run by Zhan Su. It was a small room with a couple vases and figurines set up, none of which were for sale. Betty found out what was for sale though: "fossilized watermelon" and an absolute ton of "broken vases"!

Somehow, Emily ended up talking to an old local by the name of Ai Pei. He didn't speak a lick of English so he just stared at Emily. Emily looked to Betty for help but Betty was debating with Zhan about the availability of the figurines on the front counter.

Ai Pei: "How do I communicate with this child?"
Off screen shout: "Ya DON'T communicate with that child."

"How much for the snake figurine here?"
"Not for sale."
"Why is it here?"
"That's really none of your business."
"Odd response."

Zhan was frustrated. Why was everyone always asking about the figurines? Couldn't they just take a broken vase for $150 and go home? Did you notice in the picture how Zhan was thinking about being happy? It was only a thought though. He can't actually be happy when his life is spent arguing about worthless trinket trash. What a dreamer.

Meanwhile, Arcturus had found the local "special merchant". Her name was Adaeze Min. She didn't have her own shop, she just walked around and sold things out of her pockets. She had deep pockets though because she was selling about fifteen items. They were all things for explorers, like "skeleton keystones" to open any doors while exploring and "escape dust" to get out of tombs if you were trapped in them. Arcturus didn't have a need for any of that so he talked with her about fried chicken while thinking, "Wait. Did she say her name was Adele Dazeem"?

Boy, she's excited about fried chicken.

Betty, finally free of Zhan's depression and with no more relics than when she started, decided to go for a swim with Emily. The ponds in this city were a landscaping element but Betty brought a bathing suit on this trip. Where there's water, she will swim. Swimming in these pools was probably the most out-of-touch American thing she could have done though.

Would you get. out. of. there!

Arcturus didn't want to swim (yet) so he stopped in to the general store. "Xi Yuan," he shouted when he walked in, "I hear you have everything here." She didn't have everything. Alain had told Arcturus that she had everything from bikes to dried food, but she pretty much only had bikes and dried food. Arcturus needed neither at the moment. Xi was puzzled by Arcturus's familiarity with her. Arcturus was puzzled by her stocked goods.

"Hey, I don't need a bike, ok?"
"...sure."

After being escorted from the pools by the authorities, Betty strolled into the bookstore, Emily in tow. The owner, Wu Xio, gave Betty a look. She had a window. She saw that scene. Betty coughed nervously and said, "Ok, let's see what there is to buy here."

Soaking wet and in a bathing suit. Let's look at some books!

Holy crap, look at all this racist stuff! Alain was right about her! There's a book just flat out called "Egg Rolls" and another titled "Stir Fry"? What!? "The Art of Koi Ponds"? "Marital Arts Volume 1: Wax On Philosophic". Jeez. Coming on a little strong there, Sims 3.

Betty saw the items that were on sale and put her hand to her mouth. She fell backwards out of the store, got up and ran away.

- - - Let me take a bit of a time out here and mention something else racist about this game. Each area you can visit has a symbol to go along with it. Egypt has some pyramids, France has the Eiffel Tower and China has a torii. Ok, well, a torii is a Japanese gate typically found outside of a Shinto shrine. Sims 3 doesn't care. All asians are the same to them! They also never patched it and the game came out seven years ago with multiple patches per year - - -

Yikes.

Anyway, the Mengsk family regrouped at a restaurant, cleverly titled "Food Merchant". Liu Pei was the owner, cook, host, janitor, and everything else because every store anywhere is a one person operation. After lunch, Arcturus told Betty she could go back to the hotel without him because he was going over to Liu's house. Betty understood that. She took Emily and the car back to the hotel. Arcturus returned to Xi's general bike store and bought a bike ("I can't believe it myself but I actually need one of these now.") before following Liu back to his house.

"Liuuuuuuuuuu! I'm homeeeeeeee!"

Arcturus rang the doorbell and Liu's wife, Yanyu Tsang, answered. "Am I late?" Yanyu looked into the house at Liu, who was just sitting down to read, then back to Arcturus. "Late for...?" Arcturus pushed past her, waved to Liu and asked him to "scootch over a bit" on the sofa. Liu was a little scared. "Are you the guy from my restaurant a little bit ago? Didn't you have a family?" Arcturus laughed. "I did. I did... So, what's on the tube here?" he asked as he grabbed the remote.

Minutes later, with the tension in the room at an almost unbearable point, Arcturus told Liu that he was hungry. "Im gonna go grab a bite." He got up and went to the kitchen. Liu and Yanyu followed, mostly to make sure he didn't do anything crazy. As Arcturus cooked, they stared blankly. Finally, Liu had enough. "Hey, buddy." Arcturus fidgeted with the burners on the stove without looking up. "Hey!" He grabbed Arcturus's arm and stared in his eyes. "Ya gotta go, man. I don't know what you're doing anymore. I don't even know who you are, really."

Arcturus was offended. "Well, why did you invite me over if you didn't want me to make dinner!?" Yanyu let a bit of a laugh escape. Arcturus stormed out. He left the pot on the stove. He had been making stove top stuffing. Liu took a bite and nodded to Yanyu. "That's good Top."

"Karate guy wouldn't let me make dinner!"

Outside, on the porch, Arcturus called Betty. He said some racial things about Liu Pei, then told her to pack everything and meet him at the airport. "We're... we're going home right now." "Our flight isn't for another three days, amazingly." "RIGHT! NOW!" he shrieked and hung up. Betty, who had pulled the phone away for the screams, put the phone back to her ear. "Hello?... hello?." She smiled. "Jesus Christ. This guy."

Arcturus biked to the airport.

...

Later that night, before turning off the light to sleep, Yanyu would ask Liu, "Did you invite him over?" Liu, laying in bed with his back to her, would reply very simply. "No."

Taking A Trip - Part One 

Arcturus and Betty sat down to breakfast. Betty wanted to go on a vacation. She needed it because work was getting very stressful for her. Well, she doesn't talk about work much. I actually forget what her job is, at this point. Anyway, Betty asked Arcturus to plan the trip but Arcturus was resistant. He was "too busy" today.

*stomps feet* "I don't even want to go!"

Betty washed her bowl in the sink. "I love you, but you're killing me." Arcturus laughed. Betty "laughed". "Just buy plane tickets, would you?" "To where?" "We're allowed so few options. Pick one." "Is Emily going?" Betty just stared at him for a few seconds then left for work. Walking down the sidewalk, fishing her keys out of her purse, she muttered, "Is Emily going." Arcturus sat at the table inside, staring at the closed door, and quietly asked again, "...Is Emily going?"

Arcturus changed back into his pajamas. Now that Betty was gone and Emily was at school, he could stop pretending he had something to do. He got on YouTube and started up 'Old Time Rock and Roll'. "This is gonna be cool," he whispered. He ran to the bedroom, found a hairbrush to sing into and ran back down the hallway towards the living room. Before he could slide into the room and start lip-syncing, he tripped, crashed into the end table by the sofa and fell on the floor. Bob Seger started yelling. Just take those old records off the shelf! Arcturus got up, stood the end table up, set the phone back on the table, picked up the hairbrush and got on the computer to find plane tickets. That kind of music just soothes the - Arcturus stopped the song. His hip hurt.

*click* *click* "How many tickets?" *finger hovers over the '2' and '3'* 

He just saw the price.

After buying tickets (He settled on 3, hoping Betty wouldn't be mad), Arcturus went back to YouTube and watched those videos where they make you stare intently at the screen and then a monster jumps out at you at the end. It's not that fun or funny, but he spent the rest of the day doing it.

"Damn, got me again"

That night Betty told Emily of the vacation plans. "I'll write a note for your teacher and you can give it to her tomorrow." Emily seemed excited. Sometimes it's hard to tell with children. "When do we have to leave?" "In two weeks." "Will I ever get to see my friends again?" "Are you expecting to die? Yes, you'll see them."

"What a thrill, MOM!"

Arcturus called a family meeting. Everyone gathered in the living room. Betty and Emily sat down. Arcturus paced back and forth before announcing, "I have a surprise for you. For both of you. But mostly for Betty." Betty drummed her fingers on the arm of the sofa. "Can't wait to hear it, Artie," she said. Arcturus smiled nervously.

"Betty. I'm not so sure you're gonna like it. I messed up."

They heard a horn honking outside. Arcturus stared blankly. "What is that," Betty asked. Arcturus dropped his head and said, "Uber." "Why?" "Our flight leaves soon." There was an awkward silence. Betty took a deep breath. "Are you kidding me?" Arcturus looked her in the eyes. "You wish."

"You want to get nuts? Let's get nuts."

So, they all just walked out of the house. No bags, no sleep, no preparation at all. Betty was the first to the car. Halfway to the airport, Emily just had to ask: "Where are we going?"

Don't forget to... *car zooms away*... close the front door.

15 hours later, the plane landed in China. "China". It's a big country, but The Sims 3 doesn't care about that. They don't give you a city name or anything. The whole place is a Chinese stereotype. Quick! Think of a Chinese location. Was it 'the Forbidden City'? Well, it definitely was when the makers of this game thought of one.

Look at this guy. Freakin' loving it.