Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Take Me to the Moon 4.10: Once More Unto the Breach


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The day dawned, just like every other day, except someone had knocked over the trash can.  Elise saw the trash piles, presumably from her bedroom, and mischievously decided to play in them right before it was time to go to school.





Mortimer was sent to clean up the trash, hopefully before Elise got too dirty for school.   Unfortunately, the Grim Reaper chose this very moment to come for Mortimer.







Everyone was alerted, but Bella was already on her way




Bella was running, full speed.





Everyone seemed to be in shock.  It was surreal.






In a tragically humorous turn of events, most of the family was more concerned about the trash on the ground, than Mortimer's death. 





Alexander begged: he pleaded that his father would be fine, that this was not his final moment.





Alexander was angry.  Death was unmoved.  Then the finality and sadness of the moment started to creep in.






Delaney, coming to her senses, took a good, long look at Death.  





She had met him early in life, 





but had since, mercifully, forgotten the raw, rotten stench.





Acting as if on auto-pilot, she turned and left for work, with the rest of the family.





except Bella. 




The title is from William Shakespeare, Henry the Fifth, Act III, Scene 1

King Henry:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears
Then imitate the action of the tiger...


Notes:
  • I really thought Mortimer had more time.  I had noticed that his "life bar" was full, and had begun to sparkle, but Maddi's was like that for literally, sim weeks, before she died.  
  • Most of the family did not have a close relationship with Mortimer, and it makes me sad that he died before I had a chance for that to develop, now that they all lived together.  Delaney's relationship with him was impartial, and the children were just getting to know him, except for Mortimer's own son, Desmond, who was his good friend.  Bella, of course, had full friendship and a full romantic relationship with him, and is devastatingly sad.
  • Bella will take Mortimer's remains, and she and Desmond will move back to Goth manor, after the wake.


 Delaney reminds me of her grandmother, Beatrice, here.  Beatrice fussed at the Grim Reaper at Maddi's death.  I thought she and Alexander both, imitated "the action of the tiger"






After Delaney insulted Death, he whipped out the scythe.  I was so afraid she was a goner, but he was just going inside to watch TV.





Bella, heartbroken.  The Very Sad emotion caption says something along the lines that widowhood is hard, she has lost true love.  The statue behind her, by the way, is Delaney's latest work reward, which I put in the cemetery next to Maddi's grave.





I should have had Bella plead for Mortimer!  She had the option to "Demand Mortimer to be Spared," but was not able to plead after Alexander failed.  I don't know if her ability to make that demand was due to her "Good" trait, or her very high relationship with Mortimer.  I was very tempted to exit without saving, especially due to the whole trash debacle, which was so maddening.




This is how Mortimer spent his last full day:


Retirement is good.  Bunny slippers make it better.





Fixing a BLT for the kids just before they came home from school





Watching TV with Desmond and Ewan, and chatting





Delaney got promoted to Level 9 of the Space Ranger career




And got a statue for her Great Grandma Maddi, who had wanted someone from the family go to the moon:




Alexander also got promoted:




Bella, as usual, wanted to woohoo,




And Mortimer gave in, although his queue read, "Complain about strenuous activity."


But Bella doesn't need to feel guilty, he slept off the dangerously tired moodlet well before morning, and woke up happy the day he died.

6 comments:

  1. Aww. Goodbye, Mortimer. I'm sorry he didn't have longer and that Alexander's plea for his life failed.

    I think it was right to tell the story of Mortimer's death just how it happened. Sims getting upset about the garbage as their beloved Elder dies is so Sims.

    So, you don't get a gravestone unless the sim dies on the lot? In Sims 3, if you have a mausoleum in your town, all the headstones of the dead townies go there when they die, so you can always go get them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So far in my experience, I don't get a gravestone unless a sim dies on the lot I'm playing, which can be residential, vacation, or community (the active lot). We don't have cemetery lot types yet (I am really hoping they add them), and so far, in my experience, if a sim dies on a non-current lot, they do not get a marker. I'm thinking, even if the family were to have gone to Granite Falls, and left Mortimer, when they came back from vacation he could have been gone, without a marker.

      It is a major problem right now that I am working around as best I can.

      Hopefully, eventually they'll make it more like Sims 3. That was a good way to do it!

      In Sims 2, of course, no aging happened (dying, etc) while you were playing another lot, which I really liked. Then you could move graves to any lot later, if you wanted. So I always had community lot cemeteries.

      So true, Sims will be sims. And after the recent chastisement, I wasn't going to fudge too much on the story, even if it cast them in a silly light.

      I was thinking though, you know, maybe they were just upset that Mortimer was laying in the dirt piles as he died. Yeah, that's the ticket.

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  2. Aw, Mortimer. :( I actually assumed he might not have too many updates left, from what you said previously. Didn't know it'd be the next update though! At least he had a happy last day. ;)

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    Replies
    1. ;-) Thanks, Carla. I'm curious to see, with Delaney having max fitness, if she has more days at the end. (I certainly hope so, I'm already thinking hers will come too fast even though it is quite a ways off.)

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  3. Aww that's unfortunate that Mortimer passed, too soon, especially seeing that he just moved in. Bummer that he didn't get time to know all the kids better before his passing. And poor Alexander, Bella might have had better luck getting her way with the Reaper. I would have probably been tempted to let her try (exit and try again), but then I'm a fan of planned deaths only. I have to prepare myself for the event before I can hit that save button. Poor Bella and Desmond, hope they do well, it would have been interesting if they had stayed living with Alexander.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maisie, I agree, so unfortunate that Mortimer didn't at least have a few more days. That was a big mistake on my part to have Alexander beg for his life-- now I know about that Demand interaction for the Grim Reaper, I will definitely try it next time.

      I don't follow most of the legacy rules (like not moving to new lots, not playing other lots, not importing new sims into the game) but one I haven't broken yet, is not exiting without saving. As hard as it is at the time, it definitely makes me value the sims more and going with what the game throws at me is, to me, the challenge part. I was very tempted to exit without saving here, and have Bella plead, but I didn't. Deaths are tough-- I am already dreading Delaney and Alexander's when I noticed Alexander is halfway through adulthood.

      Delete

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