Drabble+: Realization

[strangetomato]

Prompt: Realization
Characters: Frances Worthington, Beau Broke
Wordcount: 700
Imagecount: 14
Warnings: language, if you consider "ass" a naughty word

This ended up being as much about Beau as it was about Frances, if not more, but sometimes you just get inspired.







"So, yeah, I've been buying those dreamcatchers from this old man in the trailer park for years," Beau said.




"Makoto St. Julien. He makes them. He was always over visiting Mom, and he gave me one of them for my childhood transition, and another for my teen transition. It was around that time that we were in serious financial trouble, with the twins in school too, so I looked into selling them. It turns out that they're worth a lot of money if you sell them to the right people. A LOT of money. So now I sell them to rich people and tourists at an exorbitant price, and give a cut to Makoto, though he insists I keep most of it."

"I think we probably have a few of those in the guest room at home, actually," Frances nodded.




"I'll bet you do. Sims just eat that stuff up. Yeah, they love anything "authentic", folksy, and salt of the earth, especially if it has some connection to ancient cultures."

Frances marveled at Beau's ability to understand people and their desires, and then use that knowledge to manipulate them. And fair enough, he figured. Why not?

"So anyway...," Beau continued, "That's the deal with the dreamcatchers." They chatted some more about their childhoods, and how different they were from each other, and how difficult it was for them, of all people, to grow up in that situation. It was a typical college conversation. Feeling bolder than usual, Frances was the first to bring up "the gay thing."




"Do you ever get that question? You know the one... when did you realize you were gay?"

"Yeah, of course."

"I hate that."

"Well, I'm sure they're just curious."




"Maybe, but nobody ever asks a straight person that. And I also don't even know. I didn't wake up one day and decide I was gay. I'm not sure of the exact moment I realized it. It was sort of always there... well, as far as anyone knows about their sexuality as a child."

"Yeah, exactly."

"My mother probably knew more than I did," he continued, "She always seemed so worried about me, that I was behaving in ways that weren't normal for a boy."




"Yeah, Mom probably felt that way at times too," Beau said, "but I think she probably just thought I was sensitive. She never said anything about it, anyway. I think she liked that I was interested in the things she did around the house. She liked the company. Dustin, my brother, was the one who picked up on it more than anyone, I think, and he tried to toughen me up. I suppose it worked too, to an extent. Yeah, It didn't make me any less gay, but at least I'm not a wuss, right?"




Frances started to laugh. It was one of those things that got funnier and funnier the more you laughed at it.

"Now I can kick your ass and stare at it too." Beau howled with laugher. "Well, hardly. Can you imagine me in a fight? Yeah, my bones would snap like toothpicks. But I'm tough enough. I'm no Dustin, but I can handle myself."




Once they caught their breath, Frances continued. "So did you have one of those moments of realization?"

"Yeah, actually, I did."

"Really? When did you figure it out?"




"In the air."

"What?"




"Yeah, I was being swung around through the air over Dirk Dreamer's head.




"One of Dustin's friends - very attractive guy. And I was fascinated with him. I thought it was just a sort of jealousy at first, like I wanted to BE him, but then that one day when he was carrying on and swinging me around...




"I was just soaring through the air, and it was so thrilling."

"I imagine that soaring through the air is always thrilling."

"Yeah, but it wasn't just that. It was the fact that he was paying attention to me. I had a crush on him. He was swinging me around and suddenly all I could think was, 'This is why I don't like girls.'"




Beau paused, and had a moment of uncharacteristic self-consciousness. "Pretty silly, huh?"




"Not at all."








 

Comments

[dothesmustle.livejournal.com]

:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!

I've missed seeing Frances! I love the swinging interaction, so cute. Man, there are so many interactions, I have yet to see with Apartment Life. I heard you can play Peek-a-boo with toddlers, too. *squee*

I love all of these short drabbles you post. They make me happy. :]

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

Gosh, that last line just about KILLED me, ST. This was way to cute. I can really understand where their coming from being a gay teen myself, and I really liker the way you wrote it- especially the line:

"...well, as far as anyone knows about their sexuality as a child."

That is very, very true. I think this is my favorite drabbles, although I'm still waiting for the one with Frances' mother. ;)

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

*too, I fail at spelling when I'm excited. (Not in that way, though I imagine it would be hard to splell when you're ~excited~ as well.)

[music-simbol.livejournal.com]

*squees like a crazy fangirl*

This was so cute!!! *squees some more* It's nice to see into Beau's history like this on the side, so that when we do see him in the story, we have more info to go on. When do we get to see Frances' moment of realization? :D

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Ummm, do you like it? :P

I've missed Frances too, which is why this drabble worked it's way ahead of the chapter update in my creative queue. I have a big installment lined up for him soon. One of the parts of chapter 27 will be all about Frances.

The peek-a-boo is really cute. I used it for a part of the next chapter. Hooray for new animations! It's fun to find places to work them in.

Thanks. I like doing them. Sometimes the chapters are just too big. I like doing short little snippets too. I'll proably continue to do that with drabbles and challenges. I like how I can just do a scene and not worry about connecting it to a larger narrative flow.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I fail at spelling all the time. I'm terrible. Sometimes I edit but then other times I just miss it entirely. Thankfully, I can always go back and edit my updates for spelling and grammer if I notice it. I'm sure there are plenty of mistakes in there anyway.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :) The thing I like about the last line is that it really shows how confident Frances is becoming about himself. He's turned this corner where he's done with feeling bad like he's not normal and not worthy in the eyes of his family. But we'll see more about that later...

It's nice to get the thumbs up from someone who'd know far better than me. I'm working on secondhand experience (being neither a man nor someone who identifies as gay), and I hope I do it justice, but sometimes I worry if I'm missing the mark. My BFF (who actually wanted to be listed in my wedding program as "BFF of the bride" - LOL) has given me a lot of material to work with when I'm writing about gay guys, since he's the king of TMI, and I grew up with him, so I witnessed what he went through. But in the end, it's writing something that you don't really know. Then again, I'm not a straight male who gets really bombed and sleeps around all the time either, so it's just a part of writing, I guess. Well, you know what I mean.. in any case, I like to try to do a character justice. I'm really glad you liked it.

By the way, I like how you call me ST. I feel all special. :P

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I like that about the drabbles too. I'm obsessed with adding character details anyway, and often end up stuffing them into the chapters, so this gives me an opportunity to add more without worrying about it being relevant to the chapter at hand. Some drabbles end up in the chapter anyway, but it's nice to just have them there as extra info too.

Frances said that he didn't really have a "moment." It was more of a gradual thing for him, where he thought he always knew.

Or are you talking about another sort of realization? ;)

[music-simbol.livejournal.com]

Or are you talking about another sort of realization?

What on earth could you be talking about? XD

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I don't know... it's just a hunch I have. XD It's not almost totally obvious, or anything.

I mean, he's going to figure it out sometime. :)

[music-simbol.livejournal.com]

Ok, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I was hoping you'd hint at it. :P Could you hint at it now? XD

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Oh, haha... trying to trick me, are you? ;)

Well, if you don't know, then you'll have to wait and see. HarharHAR!

[simfinite.livejournal.com]

This drabble blew me away! I love all the angles you used for the caps where Beau was being swung away by Dirk.

There's such chemistry between these two, and kudos to you for creating that, because regardless of what NL's chemistry system might think, this game alone doesn't know much about chemistry.

Also - Beau is a very agreeable guy! 7 of his lines started with the word, "yeah". 8 if the count the "so, yeah" at the beginning. LOL. I'm way to observant sometimes. XD

[music-simbol.livejournal.com]

Tell me!!!! I can't stand anymore suspense!!!! ARRRGGGHHH!!!!

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

I love to read the "back story" of your characters!

I enjoyed a lot how you described Frances family and it´s dynamics a few chapters ago, so I was curious to see if it was similar to Beau's, at least regarding their sexual orientation.

Beau's "realization" was adorable! So it seems like his first crush was not Alex Goth, as I thought. That's a part of Beau's past I'm also curious about.

Thanks for sharing! :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That swinging animation is so great, so I wanted to emphasize it to the best of my ability. I really like playing with angles. *hearts the camera mod*

They don't have bad chemistry according to the game, either, but I agree with you. Chemistry betwen characters is more important than just the game chemistry for me, and I think these two would get on well together like that. I'm glad it comes across. :)

Oooh, I'm glad you picked up on that. That's just part of the way Beau speaks. He says "yeah" as a sort of filler, like "ummm", "like", "err", and things like that. Part of that is him being agreeable and ultra positive, though, for sure (following his How To Wim Friends and Influence Sims approach *snicker*). He's chatty, and just fills the silence with words, or just sounds when words fail, where Frances is pretty abrupt, and thinks carefully about his choice of words.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Well, okay... it's not too much to give away.

He might realize that Beau has his eye on him. ;) What happens beyond that, I won't say...

[music-simbol.livejournal.com]

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh. I feel so stupid I didn't get that. :P Frances is just a walking oblivious naive boy, isn't he? (but that's probably why I love him so much! XD)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I'm having fun just playing with the characters in Pleasantview, since it helps me to develop more of the details of the backstory. :) You know I'm a sucker for backstory. If I ever do a SST interview (and my number might actually come up one of these days, but it seems like it never will), I laugh at the idea of answering the question, "do you create backstories for your characters?" :P I create backstories for EVERYTHING. It might be my favourite hobby.

There's so much more I could say about the Worthingtons too, but I think I'll save the rest for Charlotte's wedding, aka the sim wedding event of the century. She's marrying Malcolm Landgraab, so you know it'll be extravagant. That's a lot of money to throw around. I'm seriously going to have so much fun doing that. And siblings like Edie and and Frances get dragged along against their better judgement. (I'm having flashbacks of my own wedding, where bridemaid sisters changed out of their dresses and into their much cooler clothes for the reception.)

Beau and Frances had pretty different backgrounds in a number of ways: the presence of their mother, their siblings (males vs. females), their friends, and the financial situation. Neither of them was openly gay growing up, but Beau had Lucy, even though his family didn't know (and still doesn't). Frances, similarly, had Edie, who confided in him early on, when she saw an ally in him.

No, Alexander wasn't his first crush, but he was definitely his first love. :) Alex loved him too, as a friend, but he wasn't interested in him in a sexual way, and that caused some difficulty between them.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Frances sees what he wants to see. :P He has his head in the clouds, in many ways.

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

Well, I must say, I LOVE the new Frances. I really like how he brought it up, I would have expected it from Beau, but not Frances.

No problem. I just like it when someone portrays a gay character as well as you do, including his struggles and problems growing up. (Especially in the Worthington House.)

No problem. I love giving people nicknames (I'm the only one who calls dothesmustle Doey, for example) so I'm glad you like it. :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I think Frances has the potential to be a really powerful character, in the sense that he's really not a bold, agressive guy, but he knows what he wants. He's growing, and a lot of that is going to happen in the next little while.

Well, I'm glad to hear you say I do it well. I really want to try to be honest about it, because it's not all just LOL-we're-gay and slash entertainment for girls. I'd hate to think I was doing that. I don't know... personally, I find any relationship between any two people of any gender and sexuality to be titillating, as long as the emotions are there too. We're all just people, right?

I like it. But then again, I've always been receptive to friendly advances. Let's be friends. ;)

[smjoshsims.livejournal.com]

I love it! I like how Frances went from semi-peripheral to fan favorite and wonderfully rich and amazing character in like, three chapters.

That's a really good way of putting it. We are all just people, and the potential to be friends (or more) with ANYONE is there, we just have to seek it out. I like Beau and Frances as friends, although I cannot wait until they're more than that. ;)

Okay, will do. :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

He did just grow like that, didn't he? I initially brought him in as mostly a vehicle to develop Tank's character, but he ended up being very interesting in his own right.

I really believe that, but that says something about my own place on spectrum of sexuality too. If I didn't happen to be with my SO, I'd have a less definite idea of what exactly I'd want. People who think they have a clear-cut identity tend to confuse me a little. I want to ask them, you never even considered... But some people really are that definite. But people can also change, and suddenly too. It's all quite fascinating.

*grin* Making friends on the internets. Who knew?

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

This is adorable! I love all the backstory bits and just... Frances and Beau RELATING about being gay and I'm so glad that Frances has found someone to talk to. Not just Edie.

I loved the playground scene. Especially the picture with Angela and Dustin in the background. They all just look so cute and teenagery.

And I love how Frances is evolving. He's starting to open up and ask questions. Instead of completely crumbling and folding in on himself, he's really blossoming. I'm so excited for him.