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They called him The Dork.
Jung Woolf knew it, and he knew why. Most teenagers didn't iron their jeans, after all, or volunteer to vacuum hair out of the deepest corners of the sofa. It didn't help matters that most people pronounced his name as Young Wolf. He was about the least Wolfish person he'd ever met.
There was also the fact that he actually enjoyed doing his schoolwork. It was a nightly routine for him and his Mother to tackle his physics assignments together. His Mother, Gertrude (he only ever called her Gertrude), called them "Smart Cookie Sessions," and at the end of each one they would both have a single oatmeal cookie and 4.5 ounces of skim milk.
That was about as wild and decadent as it got around the Woolf house.
Gertrude was a certified genius. She was a chess master, a petri-dish connoisseur, a seventh-wave feminist, an apprentice in nanogenology, and well on her way up in the Mad Science department of Cape Calamity Chem-Co.
Unlike other mothers, her hobby wasn't knitted or cheering Jung on at soccer matches (not that Jung could play soccer in those stiff, ironed jeans); instead, she worked in her home laboratory, attempting to build the perfect robotic Sim. When she hit upon the ideal prototype, she would call it a "Servo" and sell the plans to Cape Calamity Chem-Co for a vault full of simoleons.
Gertrude didn't really care about money that much, but she was constantly thinking of ways to move up in the world, to move up in her career. It wasn't about power, she said, but about evolution. Nature provided advancement over the course of time, but there was no reason she couldn't hurry the process along, and usher all of Sim-kind into the next great technological Renaissance.
That was why she had stolen the alien DNA from the top-secret laboratories of Cape Calamity Chem-Co, then used a turkey baster to impregnate herself with the Asian-Alien halfbreed known as Jung Woolf. What better way to advance Sim-kind than to broaden the gene pool with the DNA of a superior species?
Jung had learned the truth at a young age: he was a Sim/Alien hybrid, not a sufferer of Condition X. People would probably assume he had Condition X, and that his blue-ish skin and pointy ears were from the ravages of disease; they might even treat him badly because of it. In the end, though, it was probably best that he let them believe he was just another victim. Simmerica just wasn't ready to accept the fact that aliens and other creatures were flourishing around them.
Though Gertrude thought that she knew her son best, and how to properly prepare The Dork for his place amongst the elite intellectuals of the next era, she didn't, in fact, know him well enough to realize that he wasn't a Knowledge Sim at all, but a Family one.
His neatness, his eagerness to do homework, to play chess...this wasn't because he was a dork, but because it made him happy to please Gertrude, his only family.
Well, okay, so he was a dork - just a different kind of dork.
Currently, he was a dork for Violet Boxcar.
The Boxcar sisters were the only people he could call "friends," if he could even call it that. While he was fond of all three sisters, he liked Violet best, attracted to her outgoing, chatty personality and soft brunette hair. She made him weak in his scrawny knees.
How could he ever tell Violet how he felt, though? Gertrude had taught him how to tackle his schoolwork and wash under his fingernails, but she hadn't taught him a thing about love.
She herself thought love was a a biochemical response leftover from the Cave-sim days, and meant only to ensure the continuation of Sim-kind. A modern woman had no need for love--or a man--when there was turkey basters and affirmative action.
There was at least one thing that Gertrude forgot to educate Jung on, then. So he found out for himself, grateful that Gertrude hadn't put an underage restriction on his library card.
The books were extremely informative, and made for good "nighttime" reading material.
Still, Jung couldn't help but feel that his knowledge of life and of himself was lacking.
He visited a lot of museums and lectures, and was happy whenever he saw someone who looked different, like he did.
One day at the Marine Institute, he ran across a fellow who was covered from head to toe in remarkable golden fur. Jung approached him, nearly tripping over himself in excitement.
"You possess superior alien genetics, as I do!" he exclaimed.
"What are you talking about, kid? We don't look a cotton pickin' thing alike! I don't know about you, but I happen to be afflicted with Condition X."
Most of the "others" that Jung met were either in deep denial about their alien roots, or seemed unaware of them at all. Consider the ginger-haired man who cornered Jung by the pay-phones.
"Hey Luke! Check out this kid, he has pointy ears and glasses! It's wild!"
"Hey, you have pointy ears and glasses, too!" Jung seethed. Maybe Gertrude was right--people were un-evolved and not worth bothering with.
But Jung couldn't help but be bothered with the Boxcar sisters. They were normal teens: loud, carefree, and not especially bright. He felt more normal, more Simmish, just being around them.
He invited them over often, and tried desperately to make conversation that wasn't hideously awkward.
"Okay Jane, so when you aim for the bullseye, imagine that you're the Queen Alien flying over Simmerica, and you MUST drop your proton-bomb right on that tiny red dot in order to kill all of Sim-kind..."
Eventually, he worked up enough confidence to tell Violet how he felt about her. Or he tried to, at least.
"Um, Violet, I just wanted to tell you that I think you're really funny and...I like...I like your headband. What is it made of, terrycloth?"
Violet just laughed and pointed a thumb at her own chest. "Oh I know, right? I single-handedly brought back the headband to Cape Calamity, can you even handle it?!"
All the dancing and laughing during their visits made quite a ruckus, but Gertrude didn't seem to notice. She was too busy talking online to other parents who were trying to raise their alien hybrid children into beings of supreme logic and skilled efficiency.
One night, Gertrude even voluntarily served Jung and the sisters a meal of spaghetti and meatballs. Jung took it as a good sign, since she typically only served him sushi, the perfect brain food, and rejected his pleas for normal meals of grilled cheese and macaroni.
Maybe it was Jane's inopportune comments about how the space pirates had faked their mission to the moon, but at the end of the meal Gertrude pulled Jung aside and reminded him of his homework.
"Are you ready for your Smart Cookie Session?" she asked, smiling with genuine excitement. "I thought we could tackle your biochemistry first and really work up an appetite for that oatmeal cookie. I got them with raisins this time!"
Though he was blushing with shame, Jung agreed, like a good son, that it was time for homework.
The Boxcar sisters, appalled by the sheer dorkiness of the Smart Cookie Sessions, safely made their escape into the night.
Jung spent the next few days thinking of them, too embarrassed to call and invite them over. It was much easier to be friends with them in his head, anyway, because in his head he wasn't The Dork, he was Young Wolf, courageous and heroic.
They were silly fantasies, but were they so wrong? Didn't Gertrude have her own silly fantasies, too?
No, he supposed she didn't.
But in this case, he supposed wrong.
****
Short update! Both Gertrude and Jung always seemed to always be at work and/or school. :) Maybe I'll lengthen the play cycles of each family to 4 days instead of three.
Next up, the Jedi Family!
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Date: 2010-02-19 11:06 pm (UTC)"Oh I know, right? I single-handedly brought back the headband to Cape Calamity, can you even handle it?!" Haha, brilliant!
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Date: 2010-02-20 03:27 am (UTC)