TigerAnne Does Questionable Things to Sims.

I wanted to make a post where I went a bit more in depth into the potentially problematic content in this story. Every new chapter will link back to this post, in addition to a short list of warnings specific to the chapter. On the Internet you never know who reads your posts, what experiences they have in life, and what exact mood your post finds them in. I'm sharing my Sims stories in an attempt to add a bit of entertainment to your day, not to accidentally make it worse! So, I'm making a little post describing what kind of content you'll find in this story, and then you can make an informed decision about whether you're still interested in reading it.

Yes, this is a ridiculous story, but it touches upon subjects that would be serious in real life. Unlike my previous Sim-stories, The Brianna Files is TS4. In my experience, TS4 is much less batshit loony than TS2 or even TS3, which in some ways can make things that happen in it feel more real. This in turn means that this story is slightly more serious in nature than Travecy and my other legacy stories.


CWs:

* Brianna herself. She is who she is: slightly ignorant, very generic, from a background that would certainly cause you to be problematic at times. If you haven't read The Starbloom Travecy, which is a TS2 story with all the crazysauce of that game, you don't know just how ludicrous her background is. And if you have read it, then you know that Brianna has done some very questionable things in her past. This is the story about her attempt at a journey towards becoming a better version of herself, but she starts out with many problems, dude. Some of it is obvious, other things are revealed more in a "show, don't tell" kind of way.

* Me, TigerAnne. Let's be real, I'm the one writing this. Raelynn is just another of my characters, who I chose to be the narrative voice of the Starblooms. Much like Brianna, I come from a cultural background that has its differences from that of many people in the Sims community. Things that are, or used to be, normal to me could seem outrageous and unacceptable to others. I try to keep it in mind while writing, but I'm only a fallible human. Also, I don't know every stupid stereotype and prejudice that exists somewhere out there. English is also my second language, so there have been times when I've known what a word meant, but not that it was only used by a specific group or culture. I may in fact make mistakes with grammar and spelling too.

* Raelynn, our narrator. She's stuck in a time-warp, unable to age beyond 15, so she's very mentally and emotionally stunted. Occasionally she'll break off from the narrative, to go on a wild tangent, or to tell an anecdote starring herself and her weirdass family.

* It's a darkish comedy, so it will have occasional gallows humor and slightly offensive jokes.

* Keep in mind that the characters in this story represent only themselves, and no one else. Even Brianna, the basic skinny white girl that she is, is only Brianna. This is a story with a lot of WEIRD characters, and they're not based on you. I don't think that all professional female gamers with teal hair and tats have Maegan's kind of problems, or anything. However, for a story to be interesting it needs to have a bit of drama and conflict, and my characters are pretty good at causing those.

* There will be in-game deaths on occasion, as well as mention of deaths that have occurred off camera. I try to stick to death causes that are statistically uncommon or plain impossible in real life, but it's still discussion of people dying.

* Practically all of my Sims keep pets, usually cats and/or dogs. I have them spayed and neutered, which is also a practice I support in real life. Since the game defaults to free-range cats and dogs, I allow that in my gameplay and storytelling. Some characters who shouldn't have pets, at least not the pets they have, do occur in the story.

* The story features a young child as one of the central characters, and other children will appear later on. There will be instances of less than stellar parenting, on and off screen. The characters will express their own opinons on how to raise children, which aren't necessarily my opinions. I'll make jokes about dysfunctional families, however.

* The characters live in many different kinds of household/family structures, from the modern and unconventional to the very traditional. Family is an emotional topic to all of us, because we've all been in some kind of family situation, and it's shaped who we've become. Even those of us who were raised by the chickens on Grandpa's farm have our good and bad memories of it. I'm trying not to pass judgement on any kind of family arrangement, because IMO whether a family is good or bad depends SO MUCH MORE on the individuals who make it up than on the configuration.

* My Sim-aesthetic is cartoony, and my characters don't necessarily look like "real people." This goes both ways, as some of them are unrealistically pretty and some are downright hideous. Brianna, in particular, is a gym rat who has much of her social scene at the various gyms. There will be depictions of Sims working out and losing weight, occasionally becoming incredibly hench.

* You'll see characters wearing somewhat revealing clothes, as well as all kinds of alternative fashions and cheugy soccer-mom threads. EVEN SAD BEIGE.

* Characters will be bad role-models. This includes the protagonists on occasion.

* There will be depictions and descriptions of unethical behaviours such as bullying, gaslighting, guilt-tripping, faking illness, compulsive lying and false rumours. Much of this is shown as happening on social media, since several of the main cast are some kind of influencers.

* I play with very few game mods, so any depiction of violence and sexuality will be the kind you see in the vanilla game. In other words, if you're looking for empowering erotic fantasies, don't read this! You'll be so disappointed. There will be mentions of implied sexual acts and bodily functions, but nothing explicit.

* (I also have an irrational dislike for the term "vanilla" when you mean to say that nothing has been added, because most things that taste or smell of vanilla have indeed had vanilla flavouring added to them. Ice cream without any flavouring tastes like whipped cream, you know?)

* My game is chock full of CC. I play on a desktop that can apparently handle it, as it doesn't groan and moan half as much about my loaded TS4 game as it does when I fire up my absolute babby that is Planet Zoo. If you're playing on a laptop, you may not be able to stuff as much CC into it before it starts struggling. I'm generally WCIF friendly, if I can remember where I got it from.

* I seriously DO NOT CARE about the whole Maxis-Match-versus-Alpha CC debate. You do you, and don't let anyone pressure you into not playing a game you find aesthetically rewarding. I play Maxis-Mix and it is righteous. (Also, "alpha" is a meshing technique, not a specific aesthetic. It doesn't always mean the same as "semi-realistic" or "photo-realistic." You can have Maxis-matchy textures on an alpha mesh, and photoskinned textures on an EA-style mesh.)

* I am aware that TS4 as a game is flawed and glitchy, and I'll point it out.


TWs

* None of the general ones. If you have a particular trigger, feel free send me an anonymous message and ask.

Yo my peeps my peeps, this is your Narrator typing! I hope you're not mad about more TS4 and Brianna. But before we get there, we have a word from our sponsor:

Yes, hi. This is TigerAnne. If you're a Starbloom fan, and let's be honest, that's probably the only reason you're reading this in the first place, you're probably wondering where they are. I'm playing them right now, actually. :) The next chapter includes a move to the "Medieval Age," and I had to build two new lots. I was so out of practice that I barely had any idea what I wanted to do, building wasn't fun, and I didn't want to play on an empty lot because that doesn't make good pictures. That is why it's been taking some time. I've been procrastinating and playing the low-effort Brianna. However, both lots are starting to look slightly inhabited. I've been playing the family and have a few pictures already, but this next chapter needs a prologue that I don't yet have the set for.

The hospital arc didn't get finished properly, because the lot I was playing it on became hopelessly corrupted. I was using a personal edit of a TheRaven lot, which I don't have a clean copy of. Instead of remaking that lot again, I'm going to build an entirely new hospital and just come up with some in-story explaination for why it's a different building. I'm kind of excited about building this lot, because it's based on a real one that always intrigued me with it's ivy-covered, somber elegance.

So with that said, I - the Narrator - can get to business!


( It's nut-picking season. )

Welcome back, my peepz! This is your Narraelynn narrating to you all!

Brianna has managed to establish a very normal life for herself in Oasis Springs. She's started an animal shelter to take care of all the stray cats and dogs that have nowhere else to go. Her career as a chef is also going really well. Last time she lost one of the few friends she had in her new hometown, though. Her housemate Maegan has been going through the funks, and is addicted to self-punishment. :( It's time to get a furry friend!

WARNING: Contains gnarly descriptions of being munched alive by a vending machine. This is fiction and doesn't happen in reality. That I know of.

( The Universe Hates on Maegan. )

Hi Peeps, it's Raelynn! It's been a hot minute again. The good news is that I've been playing The Starblooms, and it looks like it was just their lot that was decrepitated, not the family or the whole hood! The bad news is that The Scheilers - specifically Friday's household - are flashing magenta no matter what I do. It's not the usual texture memory suspects, it's something with THEM. :C How do I know? Because I've moved them to an empty lot to debug them, and it's all pink soup! Meanwhile, the Starblooms' new lot is already full of excessive detail and works fine.

Also, I've been playing Sims 4 a lot. Don't worry, I've not abandoned Sims 2 and I won't! It's still Best Sims! I've just been trying out TS4, since it's apparently turning into Sims 4ever, and the devs are fixing and adding stuff to it, etc. Then there was a pretty good sale, and I may have gotten myself some EPs for Christmas. So yeah....

Do you remember Zarinda's daughter, Brianna? She's tired of being so darn forgettable, and has decided to go to desperate lengths to change that. Is Brianna fit to be the main protagonist of a story, extremely generic as she is? Can anyone write an interesting story with Brianna in it?! AM I THAT PERSON??! This story is set after Generation 10 of the Starbloom Tragecy, so there will be parts of Brianna's past we don't know about yet. We'll discover, as the Starbloom Legacy progresses, what they've all been up to before the events of this new story. Also, I chose to go with a Maxis Match aesthetic, but there will be default replacements and CC, eventually!

( Brianna Starts Parasocial Relationships. )

After you've eaten too much pizza, you can get weird dreams. Or so the legend goes. Maybe you even get nightmares about pizza! This lovely creation was a collab between sammyfrog and myself. We won't be collaborating in an actual kitchen any time soon, we think.

Can you tell I hate drawing houses?

Nothing spooky, just an x-ray of two peeps dancing.

But Anne, this is horrible! You've lost art skills since yesterday!

Eh, yeah. The original version of this painting got way too ambitious to finish in one day at my current skill level. I'll post the real thing later, probably sometime next week.