Asher cooked once or twice a year at most. He wasn’t good at it, but he had wanted to make a lunch for his daughter to take to school for a while now and on a whim, he decided that today was the day.
Kimchi fried rice was the meal he intended to prepare, which was basically kimchi + rice, so it should be delicious and a little spicy, without being that hard.
His wife, who was an excellent cook, was there for moral support and to watch, but if necessary, she would step in and take over, because she didn’t want her daughter to eat overly spicy burnt mush at school.
Regardless, Asher was hyped.
While he struggled, Elmire brushed her teeth, completely unaware.
In the end, he succeeded all by himself. Maybe doing so shouldn’t have been treated as an accomplishment, but since he didn’t have a taste for human food, he was proud of his ability to prepare something a tier above a grilled cheese sandwich.
Elmire was working on two music projects: 1) picking and practicing a performance piece for a special recording and 2) composing a piano sonata. Both would be a lot of work and she was excited to get started, so the next morning when she woke to a fire in her room, she remained calm. She called the local fire department to take care of it and headed straight to the music room.
Apparently, that was wrong. Her mother told her she was never to stay inside during a fire again.
Elmire disagreed. If the fire had been dangerous, she would have gone outside. However, since the fire had not been dangerous, what she had done was fine. After all, she had important work to do at the piano. The problem was that her mother didn’t trust her to assess the danger of fires properly, which Elmire thought was a little unfair. Her mother also asked her to play quieter, which Elmire thought was very unfair. Not only was her mother obsessing over insignificant fires in real life, she was also messing with Elmire’s fiery passion for music. Some music was meant to be a little loud!
Adelise thought her daughter’s response to her saying to play a little quieter and also not to ignore the house being on fire was unnecessarily dramatic. Adelise told Elmire that the “world” would not be hearing her until she was a little bit older at any rate, so she could calm down about the piano.
Elmire cried, which shocked Adelise, but Elmire was upset because she hadn’t “ignored” the fire (she’d called the fire department and they’d put it out) and why was she getting in trouble for playing the piano when she was doing her absolute best to practice seriously (and it actually wasn’t that loud)? Adelise instantly gave in about the noise, but made Elmire promise to leave the house if there were another fire. She hadn’t meant to hurt Elmire’s feelings by dismissing her hard work or implying that her playing was annoying or bad. Adelise made a mental note to reassure Elmire again the next day.
Later, Adelise complimented Asher on his cooking. Despite not having typical human tastes, his kimchi fried rice was pretty good.
He responded with a compliment for her. Despite not having typical vampire tastes, her plasma fruit dishes were excellent.
And she was clever and pretty.
But…
Asher: How much should you be eating? It won’t make you tired to eat a second plate? You’ve gained a lot of weight and you’ve been tired lately.
Adelise: … You know I’m pregnant.
He was right, though. She was tired, tired of talking to him, so she left to do a few laps in the pool. Hopefully, that would make her feel less annoyed. It didn’t. Maybe knitting would help.
No, knitting didn’t help either. She fantasized about lightly stabbing her husband with one of her knitting needles, even though she knew him well enough to know that he hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. He was just a dumbass who still didn’t know (or perhaps even care to know) how to be consistently kind to her.
Adelise knew that the right thing to do would be to talk to him because understanding some things was hard for him, but having to constantly explain that a seemingly endless amount of things were rude or unkind was hard for her. When she was less annoyed, she’d talk to him and because he’d been better lately, if he continued to be okay, even if his progress were still slow, she’d try to help him in a non-resentful way. After all, she liked him and he’d actually helped her a lot, so despite there being a significant chance of him saying something careless and cruel at any moment, she’d keep trying to trust and be more open with him.
Regardless, Asher understood some things. He was a little concerned about Elmire, so he dragged his daughter away from the piano and tucked her into bed.
Her fireplace had a fireguard installed, which Adelise had double checked, so it should be safe, but he cleaned the floor, put the fire out anyway, and sat in Elmire’s room for a while.
Random Author’s Note: One song that has vibes (but not perfect ones) of Asher and Adelise’s relationship is LeeHi’s Savior (the link is to a Korean language song/music video with English subtitles). It’s a little different.
5 Comments
Yimiki
June 15, 2022 at 6:23 pmAww, Asher trying so hard for Elmire despite not being able to taste-test properly is very heart-warming. He was on such a winning streak- with his daughter, with his wife, flirting with Adelise- aaaaaaaaand he put his foot right in his mouth there didn’t he? Oh my gods do not comment on your wife’s eating habits when she’s visibly pregnant with your child dear lord. He is so painfully clueless sometimes and it’s not even Asher who felt the hurt from that, but Adelise. 😅
Errrrr Elmire, I agree with Adelise here, an active fire should not be treated so casually 😅 there was a commercial here a couple of years ago about a guy who was just as calm when a fire started over his stove. He turned around, walked to the phone, dialed the fire department and calmly told them what was happening. It took around 20-30 seconds. And in the time that his back was turned, half of his kitchen had caught fire already. He barely made it out the door before that was burning too.
Haneul
June 16, 2022 at 11:51 pmThanks. I agree that fires should be taken seriously. I don’t think Japan has those sort of commercials even though they seem really useful, but there are lots of safety inspections and drills here. I’m not sure what happened with Elmire because my Sims normally panic and run out (or put the fire out), but she didn’t care. Luckily, the fire was glitchy and didn’t spread anywhere.
As for Asher, he’s a vampire, so even though he should never comment on his pregnant wife’s eating habits, I can understand someone who has extremely limited experience with hunger and/or fatigue being curious and wanting to ask an expert about those things especially if the conversation has already been about food, but this is his 18th! child, so at some point he should have learned something. What I really don’t understand, though, is how he can come away from that interaction with the sentiment “growing closer from quality time” when his wife is clearly upset with him, but apparently being clueless/unable to read the room is in his Sim DNA. 😕
Yimiki
June 17, 2022 at 3:44 pmOoh, maybe that’s why Elmire wasn’t panicking. If it was glitchy and not spreading, perhaps she glitched out of the panic animation as well 🤔
Haha, I can see that happening in real life just as often, so that part is not that far-fetched, it seems 😆 misreading people is very easy and so is not realising that what you said hurt their feelings. Asher really needs some lessons in reading the room though yes, my gods. 😂
Snow ~
June 24, 2022 at 12:16 amAsher’s smug face holding the chopping board and the lunch bag is brilliant XD ‘Damn I’m too good at this dad stuff.’ Elmire has a lot of passion and at that age absolutely nothing can get in the way of it (not even a fire apparently! I love Sims RNG so much : P ) Thing is I think because Asher is always driving her to work on her passion, little Elmire might likely think Adelise telling her to quiet it down a bit is the opposite, when it isn’t.
Although Asher might not have necessarily meant to be spiteful, it’s still annoying for Adelise. Also makes more sense from experience, always finding ways to let men off for their behaviour so it hurts less, because it’s easier to do that than it is to get them to respect boundaries or other people’s emotions most of the time- but deep down we are so so tired of it. Of course, Asher is putting in the effort to make positive change, as has been shown with him and Elmire- but hopefully Adelise talking with him will sort things out.
Haneul
July 16, 2022 at 11:50 amThanks for the comment. Sorry for my delayed response. (I was traveling like 21,000 miles/33,000 km over a 3 week period and it was a lot. XD)
Elmire loves both of her parents, but she seems to be having a few more misunderstandings with her mother now that she’s a child, whereas when she was a toddler it was a little rough with her father.
You’re right. Asher’s behavior can be very annoying to Adelise. Unfortunately, it may take effort on Adelise’s part to sort him out (even though it’s his problem that he should fix himself), but he’s finally doing better and it may be worth it for her to put some effort into helping him because they’re married and friends and she likes him. Whereas before, she was too annoyed with him to even try helping. Then, it was easier and more comfortable to just ignore than to put in effort and risk disappointment. She wasn’t really making excuses for him, but she was too tired/annoyed to deal with it, so she didn’t interact with him much and plastered garlic all over her areas of their home (which is probably a typical reaction minus the garlic). Asher’s a vampire on top of being a man and on top of being more clueless than a normal person, so it’s a bit of a mess. Asher needs to pay attention and luckily the sentiment system lets him do that, so hopefully he will stop generating weirdly oblivious sentiments when he’s upsetting his family.