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Benjamin Malone Jr.: is better known by the shortening of Ben Jr. – Benji, and is the eldest of Bennie and Marnie’s kids. He was an only child for much of his early days, and his mother doted on him. At first, his father was an active and loving parent, and they seemed to be the perfect little family.

By the time he was a child, things had definitely changed, though, and not for the better. He had learned to avoid his father’s quick temper, and Benji spent more and more time outside the house with a group of boys that became known as “the Kleptos”.

By the time they were teens, they had basically taken over a local establishment and convinced the owners to turn it into a teenage rebel’s paradise. Woe to any other people who showed up, though, as the club was quick to cause mischief and torture any person they felt didn’t belong there.

By this time, you see, Benji and his friends were grade “A” bullies. Benji had channeled his feelings of inferiority from his father’s treatment of him into retaliating on the world around him. He wasn’t about to talk back to his dad (unless pride dictated he do it in front of his friends) – but everyone else was fair game in his mind.

The club stayed together because they had an unwritten rule to be friendly amongst themselves, and as the became teens, some of the boys started noticing girls and bringing them into the club, too. Benji wasn’t about to tell anyone, but he had a terrible crush on a friend’s girl, Shaylee. What this will do to his close relationship to his friend, Cade, is anyone’s guess.

Also in the club were brothers Jack and Ryan, who were always vying for the blonde dancer, Emily’s attention. Which one would she pick, or would she stay wrapped up in her dream dancing career?

Lastly, there was the sweethearts Jay and Rita, who seemed nigh inseparable. Benji hated the fact that he seemed to have lost his best friend, Jay, to a GIRL… but so far, he hadn’t made any waves about it. How long would that last with the jealousy already seething? Time will tell…

(Stay tuned, tomorrow we meet the next kid!)

Meet Marnie < | Challenge Home Page | > Meet Myles

Meet Bennie < | Challenge Home Page | > Meet Benji

Marnie Malone: Marnie is not her real name, but nobody is brave enough to ask what her original name is, and she is not interested in sharing. She had hopes and dreams once… but those have long since evaporated. All she has now is a marriage she feels she can’t leave, a whole passel of kids that stretch her patience every day, and a home that nobody would ever ask for. She feels completely hopeless and overwhelmed every day, but she doesn’t even have a place she can go to hide and have a good cry.

To compensate, she turns to anger. Anger at her situation, her worthless husband, and her disaster of a “home”. She tries hard to not be angry at the kids… but – you know as well as I do – that even positive, healthy intentions don’t always happen.

No-one, not even Marnie, remembers when she had time to have a career or a life of her own, nevermind the time to make or hang out with friends. Her world is focused on her kids and trying desperately to keep the horrible apartment they are forced to live in in one piece. There’s mice, and stains, holes in the walls, and no end to things breaking or getting dirty.

She’s learned to fix nearly everything that can go wrong (since Bennie is unlikely to get off his couch to help) from library books. She couldn’t afford to go to a class or buy a book, but the local library luckily has books on most everything.

If she could have the perfect day, it would be outside at a park in the sunshine, alone with a good romance book. But that day will never happen…. and she is unlikely to have any romance in her life any time soon. Perhaps once she wanted to be a librarian or a writer, but, as I already said, the ability to dream has left her life. The only thing left to her is a vacuum that doesn’t always work, her favorite necklace, her kids’ messes, and her mini “me” moments to binge-read a trashy romance novel.

(Stay tuned, tomorrow we meet the eldest kid! Also, since I forgot to put Bennie’s traits on his intro page (although they are there now) – I will include them here.)

Meet Bennie < | Challenge Home Page | > Meet Benji

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Benjamin Malone: referred to as Bennie by all who know him – is not always a nice guy. He focuses (too much) on his comedy “career” – which consists mostly of open mic nights at the local lounge and a sometimes gig as a C-lister (when he remembers to go) – and not enough on his large family.

He grew up poor, and apparently is also mostly content to stay that way. He and his family live in a ratty apartment over a local store that he helps to manage. It certainly isn’t the “get rich quick” scheme he was told it was, and it’s certainly not what he wants to do for the rest of his life…. but it’s what he has to do.

His wife tries to keep up with the housework and the kids, while Bennie spends his days in front of the television, hoping to hear the bell of customers coming into the downstairs store. The kids have learned to avoid his ire, and play elsewhere in the house or outside on the nice days. His wife – is often not so lucky. It’s a good thing, I suppose, that they live in the retail district, because otherwise every neighbor within a mile would hear their legendary arguments. I suppose they were in love once.. but that was a long time ago, and things are different now. No one is sure why they stay together – maybe it’s for the kids. However, if it is… they are mistaken. Because hiding from your parents’ arguments is no way to live.

Not knowing any better, however, means that Bennie is unlikely to change. He continues to work during the day and haunt the mostly-empty lounge at night – waiting for his “big break”. The one that will likely never come.

(Stay tuned, tomorrow we meet Bennie’s wife!)

The Brand New Menu Item < | Challenge Home Page | > Meet Marnie

Challenge Home Page | > Meet Bennie

If you’re looking closely, you’ll find I JUST put in a new menu item to the top page menu. “One Sim” is short for “One Sim, One Lifetime”, and is a new project (and challenge) that I’m taking on, and the picture above is a teaser photo of the “One Sim” in question. I’m seriously excited about this. It will be mostly a blog / forums thing, but I will also tweet for each post in the project, and I may make a channel on discord about it (eventually). I have the page set up, and all the info you need to get acquainted with the project. Over the next few days, I will be posting more information about the Sims involved, and the project will be officially launching May 1st. For more information, click on the menu link, or the link HERE.

Also: I will 100% say – this is not going to restrict me posting on the rest of my blog stories. But it will mean there will be something fun on this blog EVERY single day. Blog posts will be in addition to posts from this project, and I’m still convinced I’ve come up with the best way to combine blogging and streaming – by using my “off day” (Sunday) – to play and write up posts for the following week.

I’m afraid that as soon as I read the rules for this, I was already hooked on this challenge. I tried to resist, but it just wasn’t happening. I couldn’t convince myself that a mere one day of sim time per day wasn’t something I could carve out time for. So… here we go again! This challenge is all about playing one sim – for a full REAL-TIME year. I plan to go longer than a year, but that doesn’t change what the challenge is about. Basically, you turn off aging and play one sim-day per real life day. Then, you post one (or more) pictures of the day, creating a picture album that lasts the sim’s whole life. This challenge is less about getting an heir or meeting goals and more about getting to know one sim.. and, in my opinion, about being able to stick to a schedule and go “the distance”. The rules are found on the Sims 4 Forums here: https://forums.thesims.com/en_us/discussion/985472/one-month-one-world-one-year-personal-challenge/p1 and it is one that anyone can do, even if you are too busy to do more than a short commitment each day.

Before I even planned to actually play the challenge, I had a sim and background story in my head. I sat down almost immediately and created some sims. Jazmyn’s story has changed a bit from when I first thought of it, but they are going to be a lot of fun to get to know as they grow. And yes, you read that right. Jaz is non-binary. You (and me) will find out more as Jaz’s story unfolds. The challenge asks for you to start as a teenager, but it was important to my background story to start as a Child-sim, so I am. I am also going to change the age-up length from three months to four. Both of these will make the challenge significantly longer, but that’s ok.

I will post a warning, however: this story WILL have triggering posts in it, and I do try to post a warning on the toughest posts, but I don’t always remember to, so be warned.

As of 9/25/2022: This story is still among my top priorities, although I will definitely say it has grown way beyond the bounds of the original challenge started. For that reason, (and because the name “OneSim” was just.. dumb) I am hereby renaming this story “Adventures With Jaz”.