4

Roomernauts

Funny name, good friends.

Rockwell Condensed Bold
Just because you live paycheck-to-paycheck doesn't mean you have to sacrifice your eco-footprint! This stylish home has all the most endearing bits of various different eco-friendly building trends; from the English garden in the front, to the pebbly backyard, and the low-flow plumbing inside, you'll wonder if you've been living in a cave this whole time! And the answer is a resounding "yes".

Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 1
House type: Ranch
Max. occupancy: 3
I love Rockwell Acres from The Sims 2 for GameCube, but it's just got too much wasted space in it. It was built to accommodate the game's direct-control scheme, making it less than ideal for the point-and-click nature of the main series. Named after the typeface, Rockwell Condensed Bold is Rockwell Acres, shrunk down to a more manageable size. I also took the liberty of correcting a design flaw in the original plan and put a 3/4 wall between the kitchen and dining room, separating them without separating them. To be fair, there were no partial walls in The Sims 2 until Nightlife, which was released after the console game was developed.

After inheriting her uncle's house, Felicity planned to flip it and sell it for big money. But, she got so involved in the project that she found she couldn't part with it. She invited her college friend, Ossie, to move in to help pay the bills, which fit in nicely with Ossie's desire to get out of that crumbly old flat. Recent college washout, Nate, answered Felicity's ad for a 3rd roommate so he could get back on his feet, not anticipating he'd find the best friends he was promised in the student handbook.

Felicity Usher
As sassy as she is clean, Felicity will rip you a new one in Yiddish if you forget to use a coaster. Despite jumping from 0-60 when cleanliness is concerned, she's actually very kind and generous. She'd give the shirt off her back to a stranger in need whether she remembered her bra this morning or not. "See a problem, find a solution", that's her motto.
Astrological sign: Taurus
Lifestage: Young adult (aged 29)
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Ossie Madison
Always more interested in tinkering than in finding romance, Ossie is about as unflirty as they come. It doesn't matter how hot you are, the hottest thing in his life is renewable energy and sticking it to the Man.
Astrological sign: Aquarius
Lifestage: Young adult (aged 28)
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Nate Newman
An independent app developer, Nate just wants to be one of the guys. Since childhood, he's been fascinated by those groups of businessmen at the sports bar, racously laughing at bad jokes and trading firm handshakes. The fact he has no interest in sports is a bit of a stumbling block, but if he spends enough time at the sports bar himself, maybe he could develop an interest in hockey. But, probably not.
Astrological sign: Aquarius
Lifestage: Young adult (aged 25)
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Felicity Usher only met her dad's cousin, Uncle Josh, once in her entire life and she was too young to remember. When Felicity was 3, she and her parents went to Uncle Josh's graduation party after he finished his Master's degree. She doesn't remember specifics of the trip, she only remembers that her cousins didn't want to play with her. That was 26 years ago. Even though Felicity didn't remember Uncle Josh, he remembered her; when his will was unsealed after he died from pancreatic cancer a couple years ago, it was discovered that he'd left his house in Willow Creek to her. It wasn't the same house she had allegedly been to when she was 3, but the new house he bought after the divorce. He'd lived there, mostly by himself, from the divorce being finalised up until he went into hospital and then to assisted living.

Felicity had gone to the University of Britechester for architecture and discovered a passion for interior design in the process. She would frequently share her 3D-aided design work with her parents, who apparently passed those on to Uncle Josh somehow, as he had acknowledged her design prowess in his will. He stated the house was "a relic of the '90s" and was in desperate need of renovation, which (amongst other reasons, mostly having to do with Aunt Tracy) informed his decision to leave the house to Felicity. Arriving in Willow Creek to inspect the property, she found it to indeed be a relic of the '90s, but it smelled like the '70s. Nonetheless, she had the executor of the estate help her take measurements and requested the house's blueprints be located. She and the executor— a rather befuddled looking attorney, named Milton— spent much of the afternoon measuring interior walls. When she returned to her motel room, she spent about 4 hours recreating the house's interior in 3D. Then, upon returning home, she spent the rest of the week modifying it; knocking a wall down here, adding a room there, going through 25 permutations of decorating schemes, and then finally hitting upon the perfect layout. All it needed was a little work on the kitchen and a new deck added onto the back.

At first, Felicity planned to flip the house, as she'd been reading about a new homestay app, Paperclip, and how much an investor had made buying up renovated real estate and then putting it up for stay on the app. Even though there had been some controversy about landlords creating scarcity this way, Felicity reasoned that since she was given the house, it was hers to do with as she pleased. However, in order to reduce costs, she did a lot of the painting and gardening herself and slept in the first finished room so she didn't have to constantly drive back and forth between Willow Creek and San Myshuno (a 45-minute drive 1 way, without accounting for traffic). This gave her the opportunity to see the house from an angle that she wouldn't have seen it, had she hired out the small jobs and controlled everything from her San Myshuno apartment; as a home. By the 4th day of work, she deleted the bookmark to that article about the investor and decided she wanted to live in the house herself with roommates.

Felicity's first choice for a roommate was her friend from UBrite, Ossie Madison, who was grateful to finally move out of his crumbling old flat. A disciple of alternative energy since taking a minor in environmental studies, he suggested that the rather miniscule front lawn be converted into something like an English front garden; mostly decorative plants and so little grass that a non-motorised lawn mower from the '50s could cut it. The backyard being paved in pebbles and moss was something that Felicity did to prevent having to do actual landscaping, but Ossie loved it, saying it was "efficient". However, it was his idea to use planter boxes as an insect attractant so they wouldn't find a way into the house.

The house took §25.000 worth of work and §14.000 worth of furnishings. In order to finance the renovations, Felicity took out a 3rd mortgage. Well, the first mortgage for her, but the 3rd one on the house. Apparently, Uncle Josh had just finished paying off the 2nd mortgage (which he took out to finance a sports car sometime while Felicity was still in elementary school) when he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Even though she had always intended to find another roommate (there were 3 bedrooms after all), the need was now more immediate, since the bills were going to start coming in very soon and she didn't want to be stuck here until her 70s, paying off this damn mortgage.

Nate Newman was clearly going to wash out of Simcinnati State's MBA programme and was desperately trying to find a job and a place to live to prevent having to go back to live with parents who would insist that he detransition. His childhood hadn't been great, his teenage years were a veritable tar-pit, and a lot of that had to do with his father refusing to acknowledge that he wasn't actually a girl. Since he was forced into wearing girls clothes, he'd decided to see how far he could push his parents before they disowned him. While most of that is a story for another time, suffice it to say he would rather throw himself in front of an oncoming train than return to that hellhole.

Looking on Gregspage, he found the listing for the spare room Felicity had put up the day before; Willow Creek was a bit of a drive from downtown Simcinnati, but he could afford the §264 monthly bill, even on the pittance he would get from whatever retail job he got when he moved in. Rather than make 2 trips, he rang Felicity over Facephone and she gave him a virtual tour of the place, which also allowed him to meet her and Ossie. Everything fit perfectly! His room was fully furnished, meaning he wouldn't have to bring anything with him except his computer and his smaller belongings. He wasn't sad to ditch the office chair he salvaged from the admin office renovation, but he had to say a tearful goodbye to his nightstand. Well, less than tearful, since he was whistling the Super Mario Bros. theme as he heaved it into the residence hall skip before jogging excitedly to his car. Leaving campus, he drove to the nearest QuickFast and ordered the 20-piece chicken nuggets meal before driving away from Simcinnati singing along to 1980s pop hits as loudly as he could.

When Nate arrived at the house, it took him half an hour to arrange all of his things in his cosy new room. Felicity had thought of everything; he had a bed of course, but the nightstand was better than the one he abandoned outside SU by an order of magnitude, he had a tall bureau drawer that still smelled like the home centre, a small wall-mounted bookshelf, and even a computer desk! He made sure to express his appreciation for his new digs as he paid his first month's rent.

After settling in and setting up his computer, he tied up a few loose ends in a personal code project— a platforming game called Ameron— and published it on Abyx, then he carried on looking for work. A long and torturous slog through various employment sites, he found a job opening at Press Start Games in the Archway Mall. Just as he was about to click the final "Submit" button, his phone chimed. It was an automated email from Abyx, congratulating him on breaking 100 sales. Simultaneously confused, excited, and afraid he might be getting scammed somehow, he went back to Abyx in a new tab and saw Ameron in the #3 position on the homepage's "Trending Games" list. Hands shaking, heart racing, and getting ready to cry, he logged into his developer account and saw that his funny little swashbuckling action-adventure platformer had been downloaded 120 times in the past 5 hours. At §5 per sale, he made §600 in gross income just since arriving in his new home! Even if the game stopped selling immediately, he had made enough money to buy a new graphics card for his computer and 16 GB more RAM. He couldn't keep it together anymore and started crying; this was the best day of his life— first, he cut loose from the worst school in the world; second, his new dorm life was 10 times better than the one he started the week with; and third, he was now officially a software developer. He knew the game would quit selling sooner rather than later, so he would still take the retail job if it was offered to him, but with the new hardware he was about to buy, he could now seriously pursue app and game development. He hadn't felt this good about his life since... well... ever, to be perfectly honest.

Fast-forward to the present day. Felicity's work as an interior designer hit a slow patch last year, requiring her to get a second job as a second-shift waitress at Johnny Good's. Ossie has had 4 different jobs since moving in; he was fired from his calling-centre job for being late after getting stuck in traffic between an overturned lorry and a 15-car pile-up that was being widely reported on by the news, he started and quit a night-auditor position at the Super C motel on the same night after he spent 3 hours tinkering with a steam cleaner, he was fired from his barista job at Sandollar for slipping his alternative energy zines into to-go bags, and despite fitting in quite well with the other employees at Circuit Computers, he was laid off when the company restructured to deprecate their brick-and-mortar stores.

Nate's job at Press Start ended when the new year ticked over, but he was able to pivot from there directly into the role of data-entry clerk at Groething Industries. His job in the office has once again piqued his interest in being "just a normal guy". Ever since that fateful day in 3rd grade when he accompanied his mother's office group to the sports bar, on the same day as a group of middle-managers from some other office somewhere, where he spent all his time being completely fascinated by the rowdy group of somewhat tipsy businessmen, telling bad jokes loudly, laughing raucously, and demonstrating conviviality beyond anything this sad group of middle-aged women could possibly approach, he knew... he knew he wanted to be like that. But, then, there was all that business during high school; acting out to protest his parents' refusal to recognise his gender identity... he figured the "just a normal guy" dream was just that: a dream. However, now completely cut loose from his parents, 3 years post-HRT, and 1 year post top surgery, he was passing. He dressed in the most normal business casuals he could find, dressed as the most normal guy on his off-hours, and could drink soda from a can with his foot up on a retaining wall with the best of them. The only problems were: A, he didn't like beer, so if being tipsy was a requirement for businessman conviviality, he could not achieve it. And, B, he didn't like sports. He tried on several occasions to get into football or basketball or whatever else it was businessmen were supposed to like, but he just couldn't.

A long-time registered user of the social networking/microblogging site, Cheeply, under the screenname "socksandscandals", Nate became online friends with another user, "closeted-soapwuppy". She had stayed up all night with him in direct-messaging one night after something he would rather not discuss happened 4 months before he left college. It was so bad he had been strongly considering killing himself, having posted a picture of his belt, hanging from a hook on the wall of his dorm. This caused closeted-soapwuppy so much alarm that she DM'ed him an urgent plea to not hang himself. They got on talking, mostly about the circumstances that led up to his decision to die, but also about other things, such as forthcoming game release dates, Ameron, software development, picture books, and various other things. By the time his alarm to get up for class went off, they had talked for 7 hours, which had allowed him to, as it were, surf the urge off. They decided to keep in regular contact, first over email, then over FacePhone Chat, whereupon they learnt each other's names. "closeted-soapwuppy's" real name turned out to be Katie. They talked about everything, including Nate's turbulent teenage years and eventually being allowed to gender-transition.

Nate learnt that Katie's sister was working for Press Start Games, which allowed him to make discreet inquiries about the release dates of several high-profile games and whether any additional marketing was being planned, such as in the area of action figures or other collectibles. After moving into Felicity's place, he and Katie talked about Ameron's unexpected success and about how he was now working for Press Start himself. He mentioned how, on his first day, the manager hadn't gotten his new nametag engraved yet because the engraving shop down the west concourse was closed until after Founder's Day, so he had to use the last employee's nametag, someone named "CLARISSA", but the label wouldn't stick because there was so little surface area for it to cling to. Katie told him that's her sister's name and she just quit Press Start last week. Nate asked if she worked for a manager named Steve in the Archway Mall. Katie replied that Clarissa was out at the moment but she would ask when she got back. Instead, what happened was Clarissa and Katie showed up at the store the next day. Clarissa shouted into the back, "Hey, Steve, I ain't back," and greeted Nate as "the girl whose job you took over". He was, understandably, surprised to know not only that he was working at the same store as his online friend's sister, but he lived in the same city as his online friend... and that his online friend was so beautiful in person. They agreed to meet at Bike Trail Coffee downstairs after his shift, where they talked for so long the mall closed. In the carpark outside the coffee shop, Nate reminded Katie of how she saved his life that night several months ago and how he would never forget how much she helped him. Katie realised that she had been gradually falling in love with him from the first time they hugged back at Press Start 5 hours ago, while Nate realised he had fallen in love with Katie all the way back on Cheeply. Imagine their surprise when they seemed to be following each other home and discovered they only lived 2 houses away from each other on the same street!

The inspiration for this is pretty obvious: Felicity Usher and Ossie Madison are the player character's roommates in The Sims 2 for GameCube & PS2. Back when I was building houses to put on ModTheSims, I decided to shrink Rockwell Acres down to a more manageable level, which I called "Rockwell Condensed Bold" after the typeface by that name. The point here was to pare out all the unused space that they built into Rockwell Acres because it was designed for a game where you can control your sims directly. Since the console games have no place in the PC games' established canon, I decided it wouldn't create an anachronism if I used them here. I modified them a bit, based on how I used to play Rockwell Acres: Felicity is gay and Ossie is aro/ace. Also, since the game gave me a Jewish-looking girl when I was starting to make Felicity, I decided, you know, why not make her Jewish too? You can't stop me! The "Uncle Josh" I spoke of in her backstory is her dad's cousin (her gran's sister's son). The bit about him graduating with a master's degree is based on a vague memory I have from age 4 and my uncle graduated with a master's, too. I don't remember most of it, just something about playing with a microphone and finding an Incredible Crash Dummy for sale at the farm and home store.

The reason Nate's story is so well-defined is because he's the stand-in for the player character at Rockwell Acres. All in good time, Felicity and Ossie will get higher-definition backstories too.

Despite parallels to stuff that's been going on in my own life over the past couple months, Nate's story of how he met Katie Kissimmee is not based on anything except a literary trope that tends to get used a lot in love stories. "Cheeply" is based on Tumblr, specifically an Honest Slogans Ripoff Post I made a few years ago: "Tumblr: Doing Everything Wrong Because it's Cheap". Despite how it sounds like it would be based on Twitter, it's not.

I'm intentionally keeping Nate's past a secret because I don't know if I want to take it in the rather extreme direction that I'm currently writing. All of these stories take place within the canon of The Sims, and what I have written right now seems too uncharacteristic. Too much like a character drama from the turn of the millenium. I don't know yet. That's why I haven't said much about it.