Kat Fighting: Round I

Hey, everybody! Thought I'd take a quick moment here just to mention that this is actually the second post in one day here. I do that from time to time when I have extra time on my hands and lots of material to post, and I'm always afraid someone might just skip the previous post since it won't be on the "home" page anymore. Also, if you leave me a comment and it doesn't show, it's just because it waits for me to give them the okay before they do (I set that up because otherwise "bots" try to leave comments advertising online car shopping or other garbage).

I've discussed this a bit before, but I'm constantly struggling with trying to decide which, if any, sims should make the "move" from the original sims posts here to the "new" sim neighborhood we're focusing on now. For example, I've never wondered about the further adventures of Kevin and Kami Smith (formerly Wilson till they moved out). I feel their story was pretty much told. It's nice to see familiar faces, but not if it means really boring posts watching them struggle to make things interesting. Then there are sims that definitely still have room to grow like Kareem "Moon Dawg" Jackson and Peter Miller, who are already in the neighborhood, and will be featured down the road.

Our familiar faces today come in the form of two of the youngsters from the posts of old: Katrina Wilson and Mia Kay Wilson. Now, Katrina and Mia Kay aren't actually sisters per say, but they share the same last name due in part to the technological limitations of Sims 1, and being born in the same house of different parents with the same last name. Mia Kay was born to Julie and J.D., and Katrina was born to Marty and Kitty. Here, we see them as kids playing video games in the old house...


Remember the old days when...
Now we have them as grownups, years later...


Don't worry…you haven't missed anything in between...
Katrina and Mia Kay have just recently moved to the neighborhood, and currently live with Katrina's uncle Antonio, Kitty Wilson's brother, in his three story house. Antonio is a successful gamer (if there is such a thing), and has already been promoted once in two sim weeks at his job. Antonio used to live with he and Kitty's mother, Corina, and the house was left to him when she moved to a retirement community. He was more than happy to house the younger Wilsons when they came to town, especially since he lived under the erroneous assumption that they would help bring in some sort of income. Well, he must actually be thinking of his once ambitious sister, Kitty, because her daughter, Katrina, has only one thing on her mind at the moment - finding some excitement.


Katrina: "I'm certainly not going to be finding it here…"
Antonio enjoys a night out on the town like anyone else, so he was quick to hop in the van and accompany Kat and Mia Kay in their quest (especially since it's his van they're taking off to who knows where). Their first stop was the local mall, which I'd have to say is a misuse of the word "mall" as I know it. Most malls feature a variety of different stores with lots of different things to peruse and buy. This place was cramped and boring and basically had a couple racks of clothes, some counter displays, and nothing more. I'd build a better one myself, but who's got time for that? Katrina did manage to take an interest in the perfume counter, so it wasn't a totally wasted trip…


Katrina: "Mmmm…lemony fresh!"
Everyone was pretty bummed out by how badly the mall sucked. I don't blame them, because I felt the same way. Just sitting their between load screens from one Downtown lot to another makes me feel like I've sat through the actual journey myself, only without even having any scenery to look at along the way. Well, Antonio is not entirely without culture, and he suggested the gang visit the modern art museum, so the girls could see his very favorite "work of art"…


Antonio: "Behold! The magnificent flaming toilet!"
Have we been introduced to "Justin the Jerk" yet? I can't remember if we have or not. I'm so used to seeing him when I play that I just assumed he's been posted here. Well, basically, he's a sim modeled after my sister-in-law's boyfriend, Justin, who's a nice enough guy in real life, but his sim is a world class butthead who runs into peoples' houses for no reason and starts poking and shoving them, and likes to abuse others every change he gets (you think I'm joking, but I'm not). Anyway, the introduction there is due to the fact that Justin wandered up to where Kat, Antonio, and Mia Kay were looking at the toilet, and started poking Kat in the chest, unprovoked.


Justin: "This toilet ain't big enough for the both of us!"
Well, speaking of sims with bad tempers, Katrina was designed to be nice and friendly and outgoing, but when it comes to sims that irritate her, she flies off the handle, and fights of her own free will. Usually, when Justin has abused my other sims, and I've tried to make them fight back, they only have wimpy interactions to begin with like "poke", but not Katrina - when she's mad, she's mad. Must have something to do with the red hair or the red clothes or the burning red eyes (okay, so she doesn't have red eyes, but the rest is true).


Katrina: "How would you like a 'red-hot swirly', dipwad?!"
Sadly, there's a big difference between having a furious temper and attacking people, and actually being able to fight them and beat them. Kat has a lot of the temper, but not a lot in the body department, and Justin kicked her butt handily (I've always wondered what "handily" means in that context, but I'll research that later). The fight attracted quite the crowd, including Katrina's father, Marty Wilson, the vampire Countessa, the me-sim Matthew Martin, and Alex Kent, who's apparently a vampire now. Hey, everyone loves a good fight. It's a heckuva' lot more exciting than this putrid art museum.


Katrina: "Thanks, everyone, for helping me out there..."
The extremely boring nature of the museum coupled with the butt-kicking Katrina received convinced everyone to move on to greener pastures. That was the idea anyway. Actually, it's debatable if their next stop was any less boring than the first couple. They headed off to the "Lucky Shack" bar and card place, where everyone refused to play at the poker tables. I don't know why, because they had money, but every time anyone tried to join any of the players, they'd get a little picture of money over their heads with an "x" and go do something else. Katrina sang karaoke to an audience of nobody, while Mia Kay and Antonio ordered drinks. Mia Kay got hers, but Tommy Wolf was hovering around the bar, and took Antonio's drink as soon as the bartender set it down. What a bully…


Tommy: "Don't mess with me, dude…I'm having a rough week..."
By this point, everyone was getting ready to keel over and die of extreme boredom. Katrina and Mia Kay had sort of been hoping to meet some guys, but with the exception of Justin, had had very little luck. Sure, the Nightlife expansion had injected a fair number into the mix, but most of them look like Frankenstein's freaks, and the girls do have some standards. After Mia Kay finished her drink, Antonio watched Tommy finish his drink, and Kat finished singing to herself, everyone piled into the big red van and decided to give one of the local bowling alleys a shot. There's no way that could possibly suck, right? Well, they got their, grabbed their balls, and everything seemed to be going well for a time…


Note the excellent 'pin's eye view' cam perspective…oooh...
Well, that wasn't destined to last too long. If you're a keen observer, and you look at the photo above, you can probably already tell where the trouble is going to start. If you can't tell, don't worry, the picture below will clear things up for you. Yes, of all the places Downtown for folks to go, Katrina and Justin the Jerk somehow managed to choose the same destination. I actually think my computer has a really sick sense of humor and that it knew exactly what was going on, but that's a whole different story. For the moment, Justin was busy, though, being a jerk to someone else...


Justin: "Who's scruffy looking..?"
Yes, trouble didn't actually occur until Katrina decided it was time to head to the bathroom, which just happened to be where Justin was hanging out. And Justin just happened to be finishing his unpleasant interaction with another sim. And Katrina just happened to take notice of this and opted to "attack" Justin. And I just happened to be sitting back eating chips and laughing because who doesn't enjoy a good bowling alley brawl? Of course, I had my own ideas about who I wanted to see win, but at the same time, I pretty much knew better…


Katrina: "Hey, the bathroom's right here…I still owe you a swirly!"
One thing about being impulsive is it sort of clouds your judgment, which is the only explanation I can think of for such a foolish move on Kat's part. Maybe she figured since sims gain body points for bowling at home (what, you don't have bowling alleys in any of your sim houses? For shame!) that she might have built herself up with the two or three frames she'd bowled since arriving at the alley, but that wasn't the case. Or, maybe she was just really mad about being beaten down in front of a flaming toilet earlier and didn't think it through. My guess is the later…


Justin: "Hey, I dropped a dime earlier…if you see it down there..."
Well, if the flaming toilet beating did nothing to improve Kat's mood, getting the snot beaten out of her in front of a huge crowd at a bowling alley did even less to help things. Granted, most of the folks standing around watching the fight had her face in their little thought bubbles, which I'm assuming means that's who they were rooting for, but being the favorite in a fight doesn't improve your chances if you have no fighting skill, so it didn't do much for her. Yes, Katrina was still furious, and no sooner had she dusted herself off from the last fight then…


Antonio: "Oh, Katrina…where did we go wrong?"
All of the sudden, I'm starting to believe those stereotypes about red heads being hot tempered (well, at least the sim variety anyway). If instigating one fight you know you're sure to lose is stupid, I don't even know what to call starting a second. Oops, I hope I'm not spoiling anything for you here by saying that. Seriously, though, I don't know what she thought was going to change…I'm no expert on the subject, but I'm pretty positive sims don't gain body points for fighting, and even if they did, Justin would have gained one as well. I believe the outcome was never in doubt...


Justin: "Oh, hey…I lost a nickel down there too..!"
That just looks painful. I half expected Katrina to jump back up and start a third fight, but alas, the light of common sense shone through the dark clouds of stupidity and blind rage, and she let the matter rest for the time being. I've seen a lot of sims fight Justin before, but I've never seen him lose (oddly, ANY sim who owns a telescope always winds up spying on Justin through it and no other sim, no matter where they live, so he shows up at a lot of houses and makes a lot of enemies). Katrina definitely inherited her mom's love for fighting (remember Kitty's performance in the "Anger Management" post), she just didn't inherit any muscle to back it. Everyone piled back into the van to head elsewhere, presumably before the cops came to lock Katrina up for being a menace to society.


Katrina: "I'm not sure I can sit long enough to go anywhere too far..."
Mia Kay drove everyone back to Riverblossom Hills to the Freetime Lounge, in the hopes that Justin would be limiting his activities to the Downtown area. This proved to be a smart move, as there were no Justin sightings at the lounge. Well, almost none - he was ever present in the little angry flaming bubble above Katrina's head, but after three beatings in the course of just a couple of hours, that's kind of understandable. Perhaps it was the perfume that was responsible for all the negative feelings. Katrina might have been thinking the same thing, because she finally took off her coat for the first time since the group left the house.


Katrina: "I'm gonna' lock that jerk in a doorless room with a barbecue and flammable furniture!"
Things actually went a lot better on this stop than at any other thus far. The girls managed to find non-violent ways to amuse themselves, though there were still no available or attractive guys to speak of. Even the NPC bartenders in my installed copy are kind of funny looking. Antonio managed to fare a little better. For the first time all night (well, it was night when they left, but morning now), he was able to take a break from cringing in disbelief at Kat's behavior, and socialize a little bit. Here, we see him chatting up Keri James, who's neither attached or ugly. I'm sure it's got to be his "man bag" he carries around that first drew her attention…


Antonio: "I'm glad you like it, but really…it's NOT a purse!"
What IS that bag that comes with that outfit, anyway? Never mind, if I'm not "hip" enough to know on my own, I don't deserve (or want) to know. I'm not convinced Antonio is really hip enough to deserve to wear it either, but that's a totally moot point. Kat managed to find her mom, Kitty, among the lounge patrons, which isn't surprising since Kitty always shows up at every community lot if you wait about five minutes. They had a lot to catch up on with all the excitement that's taken place just in the post alone. I'm sure they probably swapped fight stories, since they both seem to have a keen interest in brawling.


Katrina: "They need to throw that jerk in prison where he belongs!"
Well, it's good to see everyone enjoying themselves for five minutes without fighting. It wasn't exactly the evening everyone had hoped for, and it definitely isn't the end of our story (you just wish it was, right?). Antonio and Mia Kay were fine for the time being, but Katrina was determined to find love, otherwise, buying that perfume would all be for nothing. Well, they may say that you can't hurry love, but we all know that our friendly neighborhood sims don't believe those words of wisdom, so stay tuned as we witness Katrina's foray into the world of simulated romance in "Kat Fighting: Part II".