Chapter 56: Kaboom

The zebra painting is gone, but Zephram is convinced it left some residue behind, and it's eating into his brain, seeping in through his nostrils when he's trying to sleep. He's a moment away from literally ripping his hair out in bloody chunks.

Paz's birthday party.

Cruz (old), Chad, Arthur, Sacha, Sifton, a party crasher. Other people who didn't make it into the pics.

Chad is free to dance with Paz at the party because she convinced him to break up with that !@#$% Alison Newbie. Women would get in the way of his scientific advancement.

On the downside, Alison hates Paz forever.

The first thing adult Paz does is get a job at the science center.

So. Much. Promise. MUAHAHA.

A workaholic, she immediately begins working from home.

Her boss will be impressed if she can make Venus Fly Traps into WMDs, and Paz feels this unstructured garden is holding her agricultural skills back.

Meanwhile...

Today is the day Demon Zebra DIES.

BLAM.

Wait, can I add my own sound effects? Yes, I am the narrator. KA-BOOM.

Zephram thought he'd be safe in the living room, but is quickly consumed by flames. He almost pays for his compulsive need to get rid of the "zebra residue" with his life.

Luckily, a trip to the hospital makes him right as rain again. As right as a neurotic insane sim can be, anyway.

Paz and Paprika have the damaged house repaired, but Paz goes further than that, and begins looking for a new home. Maybe a new place would offer a reset button to her brother's neurosis.

"It's likely nothing will change," Arthur warned. "He'll move on to another obsession."

But Paz still wants to try, because... well... she wants to move.

"We need a fresh start," Paz explains. "It would be good for us."

Paprika doesn't want to leave her childhood home, but if Paz and Zephram are moving away, she won't ignore their invitation to come along for the ride. She's happy they want her around; many young adults want desperately to leave their parents behind.

Paz only has one parent left. Dax passed away while she was still a teenager.

And so the Archers sell their ancestral home to someone else within the family, and move to a newly constructed, overly-huge house with a giant backyard facing the forest. For weeks, everything is a mess. Unpacked items are scattered over the floors, and some of the walls are still unpainted. The spacious rooms are almost intimidating.

 The day after the move, Paz wakes up to notice her brother has curled up in bed next to her. Not a good sign.

"You're not... a dog... what the hell."

Dalma has some... news.

Like most sim parents, Zephram reacts positively. Might as well, you know?

Chad observes, curious about the genetics in this town. Maybe when the baby is born, Zephram will let Chad do some tests. Until then he's here to talk about work, and see if Paz needs any help moving furniture. That sort of thing.

"Hey, why did you cut your hair?"

Choose your own caption.

A. "My great-uncle is a cop."
B. "If there were fashion police, we would all be SO busted."
C. "They almost had me committed for blowing up the old house."
D. "Can I have Chad arrested for staring at my sister's boobs?"

Dalma is here because her mother won't tolerate what's happened. Her daughter was impregnated by an insane man, which spells doom for their political careers. Dalma ran away in a fury, something about being "in love" and "everyone else can go !@#$ themselves!" and "go die in a fire, Mother!", but even now, as she seeks shelter in the Archer home and severs contact with her campaign managers, Dalma is beginning to have regrets.

Paz's reaction to new housemate: grumpy.
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Etc.: Better pics to come. I'm still getting settled in to the new house, changing and re-changing the wallpaper, and the furniture, etc. The family has enough money to do whatever I want with the house. So I'm going to do whatever, and sell whatever, and when I'm done I'll set the family funds to 200 simoleons or something. It's getting too cluttered.

I loved the old house. I loved how it was right next to the river, and generally surrounded by pretty sights. I loved the house next door and the cherry trees between them. For the new house I chose a large lot (actually the lot Randy and Randi were originally on) because I'd always wanted to put outside hot tubs in and stuff, but there was no space. The new large lot unfortunately came at the price of boring scenery and slightly reduced game performance. Blah.

Paz's randomly rolled adult trait is eco-friendly.

Paz & Zephram's roll recap: single parent with "help", science career, part-time job, four children, change of scenery, fighter. I have moved Dalma in for the last day or two of her pregnancy. Zephram asked her to move in, though in the story she would have asked him if she could stay with him.