An Allegorical Halloween - There is no Allegory, Actually

May your Halloween involve an obscene amount of candy, unless you don't like candy, in which case may it involve an obscene amount of some other thing that is both delicious and terribly, terribly bad for you.

Tomorrow is the first of November, and that means I'll be disappearing for NaNoWriMo. I may squeeze out an update here and there amidst all the furious noveling and Skyrim-ing, but it won't be my priority this month.


As a parting gift, here is a picture of Stanley being thrown from a horse.

An Allegorical Halloween - The Moral of the Story

An Allegorical Halloween - Stan the Businessman

I've been neglecting Sim Survivor to work on this: a series of brief vignettes about the spirit of Halloween. Survivor updates will resume now that I'm done, plus there will be a new comic every day leading up to the 31st! (Well, technically there will be two this evening, as I didn't think of staggering them until the 26th, but I've unlocked the secrets of time travel, or at least backdating, so nobody will notice.)

A depressing cinderblock of cinder and depression.

I don't understand this.


Anyway, guess who didn't pay their bills again?


"Well, since I already know I'm not getting anything out of you people I may as well work on my calisthetics."

Good idea, repoman. Repowoman. Repoperson. In fact, since nobody is going to pay you any attention you may as well just get back in your truck and--


"Agh, it's you again!"


"RUN AWAY!"


"Um, you are aware that there's nothing I can take from--"


"RUN AWAY!"


"I don't understand this 'fiscal responsibility' stuff. Where I come from we don't even have bills..."


While Stanley was out dodging the repoperson, I replaced the quaint homeless shelter he's come to frequent...


...With a depressing cinderblock. Aside from aesthetic appeal it has everything that the old shelter does not, such as...


A potted plant in the lobby!


A television!


A secretary's office! (Secretary not included.)


A full-service cafeteria! (Grumpy cafeteria worker and full service not included.)


TWO computers from the 1990s and a rummage-sale chessboard! (WOW!)


Plenty of beds and enough motivational posters to choke a man with! (Are you feeling inspired yet?!)


A fully functioning bathroom, complete with badly-placed windows! (You may not want to use that urinal...)

As you can see, this shelter is clearly superior to the last. Let's see what Stan makes of it...


"Where's the other one?! I liked the other one!"

Oh. Well, that's too bad for you. Get used to this one.


Stanley settles in reluctantly.


Five minutes later, however, a random woman sits down next to him and all his reluctance flies out the window.

"Heeey, what's a nice girl like you doin' in a blocky place like this?"


"So have you got a job? I've thought about it, but the whole 'gainful employment' thing just isn't for me."


"I mean, I did security work for a while and there was waaay too much excitement, and it was dangerous. And nobody even gave me any recognition for my troubles."


"Plus I hate to apply myself, you know? I'd really rather troll people on the internet all day."


"Ugh, I'm so hungry..."


"Sure, people have donated baskets and baskets of food, but I want that hotdog! And it's over there by the wall where I can't route to it! ARGH!"

Kai, DON'T BE AN IDIOT.


Thank you.


Isn't it amazing to sleep in beds for once?

And, because I couldn't find a way to work them into the narrative, have some screenshots of Stanley making stupid Stanley faces.






"Hello. I volunteer here at the shelter. It's nice to meet you."


"So you're the one responsible for all the cheap Dells upstairs? HOW CAN YOU EXPECT ME TO DIRTY MY FINGERS WITH A $200 COMPUTER I HATE YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO WORKS HERE ARGLEBARGLEARGHRAWRSNARL."


"Wtf?!"

Stanley gets that look a lot, for some reason. Can't imagine why.

The simming experience has been growing stale for me, even with all the effort I've put into maintaining a non-traditional playstyle, so I have prepared something new to keep myself entertained until Pets is released. It is based off of a game that I used to play as a wee child with a copy of the Sims 1 and too much time on my hands, only I am now an ostensible adult with a copy of the Sims 3 and way too much time on my hands.


Prepare yourself, reader, and don't wonder where Meadow Glen has gotten off to. It is safely ensconced in a backup folder somewhere in the deepest recesses of my hard drive, awaiting the day that I am no longer bored with it.

'Cause I'm the taxman...

As a sidenote, there was a reason that I specifically compared Stanley to Bram Stoker in my last post. You see, I decided to type up an example of what I thought his writing would be like and submit it to I Write Like, and it thought that he wrote like Bram Stoker.

For the record, here is what I sent in:

Voluptuous Vixen Vampires From Space, by Stanley

Stanley was an ordinary man until he was kidnapped by the voluptuous vixen vampires from space. Taken aboard their ship and forced to marry them all, then crowned their king, he was then the happiest man ever!!! He had women feeding him grapes and tending to his every desire and was very happy.

The End

Yep. Bram Stoker. Make of that what you will.

Anyway, after hanging around the homeless shelter for a couple weeks I suddenly remembered the vegetable garden. Crap! The vegetable garden! Well, maybe it's all right, maybe the plants will stay fresh if there's nobody around looking at them and thinking 'I should really water those before they go bad...'


Nope. It's all dry and wilty and dead. Crap.


You're the gardener, man, you fix it!


Kai labored through the night, watering plants, weeding them, harvesting their not-so-fresh produce, and generally coaxing them back into a state that somewhat resembled life.


But, too exhausted to save everything in one go, he finally gave up and dragged himself into the neighbor's backyard for a nap.


You know, being homeless as a sim isn't that bad. At all.

Things were not so tranquil back at the shelter. There, the unthinkable had happened.


The computer had broken.


"Stupid computer! How am I going to troll people on the internet now?"


"I know what I have to do. I'll have to fix you myself! Let's see, what does this pokey-outy thing do? And this wire?"


"Eh, whatever. I'll just jab it with a screwdriver and see if that works."


Amazingly, it did.


"Huh. Well, whatever. Just don't break again, stupid computer."

Back in his unsuspecting neighbor's yard, Kai woke up and headed off to continue gardening. But then!


Then I got this popup saying that they owed a bill in excess of $800 and had only one day to pay it off.

What? First of all, how can their bills be $800+ when they don't even have electricity? And if they don't pay, what will the city do about it when they own literally nothing that can be repossessed?

They didn't have the money to pay it, so I just ignored the popup and let everyone go about their business. Kai was still restoring the neglected garden when I got this popup the next morning:


Ha. So what exactly are you going to take, repoman? The clothes off everyone's back? All the old newspapers piled up outside their lonely little mailbox? The garden? Oh, please don't take the old newspapers! I'd die without them!


Oooh, I'm so scared.


Yep. Shaking in my boots right now.


There are no words to describe how frightened I am to see that truck in front of my lot. None at all, guys.


"Huh...who are you and what are you doing here?"


"Hmm..."


"Wait, I know that uniform! You're from Collections! RUN AWAY!"

Stanley is more easily intimidated than I am.


There you go. Join the ranks of No1Curr.


After a few hours she just climbed back into her truck and drove off. It happened so quickly that I didn't get a screenshot. :( At least I now know, however, that these people are immune to the taxman.