In an alternate slice of reality, your sims live on the edge. Once you upload them to the gallery, they are no longer safely in your hands. They are in the hands of others. Others who may not share your vision…
Background:
The "pic of your sim-self" thread went a little off the rails. This was mainly due to the color yellow and had nothing at all to do with me. Honest.
@Captain_NXR7 was naturally involved, much to no one’s surprise.
The situation quickly escalated when @Simminggal donned "Kill Bill" yellow instead of the mustard yellow suggested. (Vlad was not amused.) When it was said that mustard yellow might have made a difference, Simmingal pointed out that it was strange there was any yellow in her closet at all. It was at this point that I had to set the record straight –
In an alternate slice of reality, Simmingal did indeed have more yellow in her closet that anyone could have ever imagined. Even so, those shades of yellow paled before her ebullient nature. Yellow. Yards and yards of yellow. And not just any yellow, she had Dior, https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52999128665_e4be59820f_z.jpg and silks, https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52998159742_1d742d2a15_z.jpg and a radiance that shamed even the sun. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52998907454_9585240fa4_z.jpg Yes, in this little slice of an alternate reality, she was, unexpectedly, the banisher of the night.
Your sims aren’t safe in the alternate slices of reality. You never really know what might happen. Does it ever cross your mind? Or do you toss them to the gallery and never consider it again?
Five men went to the King’s Mountain the day the boy King died. The temperature plummeted. The ground became hard. The color in the trees bled out into the air. Everything began to die.
Five men went to the King’s Mountain the day the boy King died.
The not dead stranger who now proclaimed himself King.
The Queen’s father had demanded to go, and so had the Queen’s mate.
One of the boy King’s advisors was shamed into going.
And the out of favor Planner, who had been frantically apologized to and fawned over until his ego was satisfied. He had agreed to go on the promise of a significant land award and restoration of his reputation.
Five men went to the mountain and only two survived.
The old Planner and the new King.
What happened was never questioned. The story never forgotten. It was recorded in the historical book, as written by the Planner. The official record states that the new King presented all the documentation which had been prepared by the previous trusted advisor. This documentation purported to show the abdication of the boy King to the stranger and the approval of the abdication by the most trusted advisor. The reason given was that the boy King wanted to rule no more; he just wanted to be a child. As both the boy and the advisor died before the documentation was authenticated, it fell to the Planner to prove the claim. The book stated the documentation survived his rigorous scrutiny. The Planner accepted the claim.
The Queen’s father and her mate both vehemently protested. The boy King’s advisor reluctantly joined the protest.
The historical book contains the following explanation of what happened next:
While the protest was being delivered, the stranger grabbed a handful of grass and tossed it into the air. The grass landed on the three men standing in opposition. The men stopped their protest to laugh and mock the man for his silly behavior.
The stranger simply said, “Dead are the men who disagree.”
At this point, the grass became fangs of a great searing hot terror. The Planner wrote he saw nothing but teeth held in massive jaws and blood bursting from bodies. He also wrote the heat from the jaws was so great that he could not stand. The deaths were so quick that there were no screams. The bodies were eaten fully. Flesh and bones, and weapons and clothes.
The Planner wrote that he was terrified.
The new King turned and asked him, “Do you disagree with me?”
The Planner bowed his knee and said “ Never, my King.”
I had gone to the wood, at the top of the hill, to the ground that could hold the travels. The mirror stood silently and did not shake. The mirror that held the ways. I had watched and I had listened. I had bit my lip and sighed. And I had known what I had to do. I looked for her in my reflection and waited for the mirror to bend the lights and sounds. It did not take long for the paths to collide, the realities to merge. She stepped out of one of the paths and came into the center of the way. My reflection stood nearby.
She was all those things that I was not. She was like me in a thousand ways and nothing like me at all. There was one thing though that made me shiver. She was indifferent. Which is the worst thing anyone can be.
Unfeeling. Unattached. Unemotional. Apathetic. Was there anything of emotion left within her?
She looked like I remembered my mother to look, and her mother, and her mother. The pain of DNA.
Everything removed from her except the bloodline of matriarchal identity. She was more than a shell but she was empty all the same. And I remembered again.
The shock of seeing her was louder than I expected. I knew it. I knew it was coming. But it was still louder somehow.
I was the splinter. She was the source.
All those years, or maybe just days, I thought I was the one who was full and real. All those years, or maybe just days, I thought I was alive and whole. All those years, or maybe just days, I thought I was something; but I was not. I was barely even a copy. I was a splinter, a sliver, a fragment perhaps forgotten. I was the paper-thin decision that flutters in the wind. I never thought deeply about anything, I was just that kind of girl. I was just a piece, a section, an impulsive decision. A bad and impulsive decision.
She was that little girl who lied to her daddy and made him so very proud because she learned how to lie so very well. She was that little girl, the troublesome sort, who traveled without the mirror. Over and over and over. Leaving splinters everywhere. In Every Reality. For years, or maybe just days.
She left me behind on a pier. Watching the sunlight slide across the water. Falling in love. Learning to breathe.
She had eyes that calculated. She judged every border in the span of a heartbeat. She knew the moment of every echo. She knew the moment of every pain. She held all the giftings. Past, Present, and Future. She could see all of the possibilities and all the opportunities. But the emptiness still consumed her. A hard emptiness that was full of nothing. And it made her hard in return. She was the concrete wall. I was the paint peeled from it. She was the art. I wasn’t even a copy. I wasn’t even her memory.
I beckoned her to come out from hiding, to come out from the mirror. She said she wasn’t hiding; she was existing and that was different. I agreed and asked her to come out of the mirror. She said that the way was tortuous. Her mind was pulled in every direction, and she had no anchor point. She had nothing to hold onto. I told her to hold on to me.
Her eyes calculated but never narrowed. Her coloring gave nothing away. After a long while she said, "I do not like the look of you. You are bruised and you are foolish."
"Better me than you," I said. "That is an acceptable answer." she said.
"I will join to you." I said. She stared cold and hard. "Why?" My lips twitched and I tried to breathe. I heard the words but tried to feel nothing. "I am bruised and foolish. You are neither of those things. You are concrete and unyielding. What I stand to lose is less than what I gain."
"I am you," was my reply. "Whatever altering is done, will be the truth. For both of us."
"I do not like the look of you," she said plainly.
And then it happened. I had a thought. I had a deep thought. And I decided that it might be good.
"The King has invited me to dinner. And I have nothing to wear. Since you are in the mirror, and since we once were one, I would like to borrow some clothes. I hope that you don't mind. Tell me, what do you recommend I wear? You know him better than I."
Her eyes calculated and she did not blink. But the color of them swirled.
I continued, "He married your aunt, did he not? Before his teeth bit into you. She's tethered to the lake, but not quite as dead as your mother. I was still with you when that happened. So, I know you were very afraid. Yet, there was also something else you felt. You splintered all your fears away. Did you splinter the other away as well? I imagine you did. Where did you leave her? I wonder. You little coward. Where did you leave your desire?"
She blinked and her eyes did not calculate. She stared. Her jaw set taut and firm.
"Your splintering was... Intentional." The brief shadow of a smile took the corners of my mouth.
She lifted her chin, and she came out of the mirror. Sliding across the ways. Stacking the sounds. Hurling herself into my face.
