A Family for Felix and Zed

I created Sim!Felix and Sim!Zed last year to celebrate two years of Chaos Station. I had so much fun playing the guys in a contemporary setting and couldn’t get over how much like their story counterparts they were. I selected their traits, so it shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was to see them acting like Felix and Zed. It was the little things. The stuff they did when I wasn’t watching over their shoulder. Their reactions. And the way their relationship blossomed out of the friendship they started with.

If you haven’t read the story I wrote for them last year, using screenshots from my play time, click here. With the third anniversary of the Chaos Station series approaching, I revisited my two favourite Sims and prepared to get busy with the kids I’d promised them.

A Family for Felix and Zed

Unsurprisingly, Zed was the one who decided when they should start their family. He started having thoughts about wanting to try for a baby with Felix. I pinned the thought, sort of half excited and half horrified by the prospect of a male pregnancy. Turns out, that’s not available in The Sims 4. Relieved, I sent Zed to the computer to adopt and up popped a list of kids, each with a picture and a name, and of course, Zed wanted to adopt them all. He selected Malachi, mostly because the baby had a cool name, and with one click, it was done.

Then Zed went out to collect his son.

Felix watered the garden.

Zed brought the kid home, put him in the crib and… went to work. I swear I am not making this up. He dropped a bomb in the spare room and left.

Felix stopped his workout to wander inside and immediately picked up the baby and started cuddling it. My heart did a lot of weird things inside my chest at this point. Felix is the character I created and wrote in the series, so I have a much stronger connection to him than I do Zed. I adore Zed. I fell in love with Zed alongside Felix, but Felix is my guy, you know? Watching him cuddle a baby without stopping to wonder where it had come from and why it was suddenly in his house was some kind of wonderful. And so very Felix. I’m sure later, he’d corner Zed with a “What the f*ck, dude?” but in the moment? There was a baby needing food, changing and cuddles.

Zed came home and played with the baby as well and it was fun to watch them wander into the room at all hours of the day and night just to interact with their new family member. They were excited. They cooed and cuddled and fought with each other over who got to do feeding and changing. Adorable and maybe not that unrealistic. One of the joys of playing a game like The Sims is watching human interaction pared down to the simplest things and watching Felix and Zed take a baby in stride, adding interaction with Malachi to their day, was very heartwarming.

Like any good couple, they still took time for themselves, deciding to have a makeout session in front of the garbage can one night and pausing again to kiss in the middle of the street the day they took Malachi to the park for the first time.

Zed was a little sad that day because Felix had forgotten his birthday. Malachi had aged up to a toddler and stolen limelight. How like real life parenting is that?? So like real parenting.

Zed with a long face was hopelessly adorable.

Felix cajoled him out of the brief mood with a kind word and a cuddle.

Don’t you wish real life was as easy as The Sims? Don’t answer that. I’ve killed too many Sims (mostly unintentionally) to…

You know what? Let’s move on.

With Malachi now being somewhat verbal, Felix and Zed started spending even more time with him. Felix liked to just sit around and chat, which, you know, isn’t very Felix-like, but really kinda is? It reminded me of his friendship with Qek. Felix likes to give the impression he doesn’t like people very much and yet he’s very good to his friends. I could tell he enjoyed spending time with Malachi and it made me so proud. He was a good dad!

Zed, of course, was the perfect dad. He cooked and cleaned and repaired stuff and would then try to read to Malachi while he was sleeping. I guess he believes in sleep-learning which does not surprise me at all.

Thinking that having a baby dumped into the middle of his day hadn’t been such a bad thing, Felix returned to the computer to order up another one. This time he selected a girl and left Malachi in Zed’s capable hands to go pick her up. Felix and Tiffany arrived back at the house a couple hours later and spent the entire afternoon talking on the front walk.

Felix and his new daughter were BEST FRIENDS by the time they finally ventured inside to eat the fabulous meal Zed had spent the same afternoon preparing.

The family quickly got cozy together and the next day I took them to the park where Felix and Zed once more blocked traffic with a street kiss. I swear, these guys. Take them somewhere new and the first thing they do is start kissing. Then they followed the kids into the park and… Malachi disappeared. I spent about five minutes looking for him before learning he’d been whisked off to daycare and I don’t know if that happens when parents stray too far or if it had been scheduled, but Felix and Zed didn’t seem worried at all.

God, why isn’t real parenting like Sim parenting?

Zed and Tiffany spent the afternoon bonding while Felix chatted up everyone in the park. Then the family spent some time together.

And that’s where they’re at right now.

I’ll be checking in on the guys from time to time but I’m not planning any extensions to their Sim story. As fun as it’s been, as a writer, I know that the more you play with a story, the more you need to wreck stuff in order to get to the good stuff and I don’t want that for these guys. Putting them into The Sims has always been about the chance to give them something they didn’t have before—a steady and quiet life full of love and laughter—and I like the idea of leaving them to enjoy parenting and each other without anyone being there to say their lives aren’t exciting enough.

It’ll be fun to see what they’re up to next year. ❤

To celebrate three years of Chaos Station, I’ll be posting a giveaway next week, exclusive to newsletter subscribers. Click here to sign up.