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[[https://willoughbywhippetsandtibetanspaniels.com/catastrophe-theory/ ''Catastrophe Theory'']] is a VideoGame/TheSims4 fanfic by Dolly Llama. Depending on how pretentious you want to sound, it can be described as either a {{black|Comedy}} [[{{Dramedy}} comedy-drama]] or a work of [[{{Postmodernism}} post-postmodern]] {{metafiction}}. It started in March 2019 and is ongoing.
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Alphabetization.
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* RotatingProtagonist: Officially, there is no protagonist. The character page roughly identifies one protagonist per family per generation: Xiyuan as the first-generation Liu protagonist, Shu as the second-generation Liu protagonist, and Claudia as the first-generation Jeong-Espinosa protagonist. It suggests Charlie might be the second-generation Jeong-Espinosa protagonist, although the prologue and the cover for ''Apotheosis'' both feature Kendra.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Bernard delivers one to Mike at the end of Book II for being too selfish to acknowledge the consequences of his actions. Mike echoes this speech to Hector at the beginning of Book III for needing to blame someone for his problems when Hector could be considered just as responsible using the same reasoning.
* RotatingProtagonist: Officially, there is no protagonist. The character page roughly identifies one protagonist per family per generation: Xiyuan as the first-generation Liu protagonist, Shu as the second-generation Liu protagonist, and Claudia as the first-generation Jeong-Espinosa protagonist. It suggests Charlie might be the second-generation Jeong-Espinosa protagonist, although the prologue and the cover for ''Apotheosis'' both feature Kendra.
* RotatingProtagonist: Officially, there is no protagonist. The character page roughly identifies one protagonist per family per generation: Xiyuan as the first-generation Liu protagonist, Shu as the second-generation Liu protagonist, and Claudia as the first-generation Jeong-Espinosa protagonist. It suggests Charlie might be the second-generation Jeong-Espinosa protagonist, although the prologue and the cover for ''Apotheosis'' both feature Kendra.
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* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Bernard delivers one to Mike at the end of Book II for being too selfish to acknowledge the consequences of his actions. Mike echoes this speech to Hector at the beginning of Book III for needing to blame someone for his problems when Hector could be considered just as responsible using the same reasoning.
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Grammar again. Sorry.
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* Bernard Shallot-Liu, formerly Lord Bernard Escargot Shallot IV, [[BackFromTheDead resurrected]] premade ghost who Xiyuan [[BoyMeetsGhoul falls in love with]]. An accomplished GentlemanSnarker in his own right.
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* Bernard Shallot-Liu, formerly Lord Bernard Escargot Shallot IV, [[BackFromTheDead resurrected]] premade ghost who whom Xiyuan [[BoyMeetsGhoul falls in love with]]. An accomplished GentlemanSnarker in his own right.
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Grammar; messed up the alphabetization.
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* DeathIsCheap: Deconstructed. Although the characters can exploit game mechanics that allow them to be resurrected or to avoid death entirely, the act of dying itself is treated as a traumatic event. Furthermore, if death is cheap, what's to stop a morbidly curious sim from dying on purpose?
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* DeathIsCheap: Deconstructed. Although the characters can exploit game mechanics that allow them to be resurrected or to avoid death entirely, the act of dying itself is treated as like a traumatic event. Furthermore, if death is cheap, what's to stop a morbidly curious sim from dying on purpose?
* NoFourthWall: Between the narrator and audience. The AuthorAvatar is the author herself, not a fictionalized version, and she narrates as a type of PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration. The sims themselves do have a fourth wall.
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* NoFourthWall: Between the narrator and audience. The AuthorAvatar is the author herself, not a fictionalized version, and she narrates as a type of PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration. The sims themselves do have a fourth wall.
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Removed speculation
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* CerebusRollercoaster: It's rare for a ''Catastrophe Theory'' chapter to be lighthearted. It's even rarer to have a chapter with no jokes.
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* CerebusRollercoaster: It's rare for a ''Catastrophe Theory'' chapter to be lighthearted. It's even rarer to have for a chapter with to have no jokes.
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** Xiyuan and Shu are both sound-color synesthetic and perceive the hue of a sound according to the emotion they associate it with. From what we've seen in the prologue, the end of Book II, and ''Haunted,'' it's suggested that they follow the same emotion-to-color mapping as the game.
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->''"And then we create a virtual world populated by these creatures who are eternally young and beautiful, accomplished beyond our wildest imaginations, sheltered from the thousand pinpricks we experience daily. And then we kill them."''
-->-- '''[=Dolly Llama=]''', [[https://willoughbywhippetsandtibetanspaniels.com/catastrophe-theory/the-jeong-espinosa-family-surprise/ "Surprise!"]]
[[https://willoughbywhippetsandtibetanspaniels.com/catastrophe-theory/ ''Catastrophe Theory'']] is a VideoGame/TheSims4 fanfic by Dolly Llama. Depending on how pretentious you want to sound, it can be described as either a {{black|Comedy}} [[{{Dramedy}} comedy-drama]] or a work of [[{{Postmodernism}} post-postmodern]] {{metafiction}}. It started in March 2019 and is ongoing.
At the beginning of the story, there is no plot and no characters, just six sims. The author drives the narrative forward by interpreting events in the game world. For example, a sim's tendency to autonomously mix drinks becomes a drinking problem, and a man's tendency to flirt with other men in front of his wife leads to a LateComingOut story. As the plot and characters deepen, the focus shifts to complicated relationships and [[DeconstructionFic deconstructing]] the [[FalseUtopia unspoken dark implications]] of the Sims 4 universe.
Chapters roughly alternate between two families, the Jeong-Espinosas and the Lius. The original six main characters are:
* Claudia Espinosa Castillo, Mexican chef and former pro bodybuilder who goes hard on [[DrunkOnMilk "juice"]] to [[StepfordSmiler cope with her personal life]].
* Mike Jeong, ManipulativeBastard astronaut, former businessman, and former comedian.
* Charlie Jeong-Espinosa, Mike and Claudia's son who grows up to be a brilliant but [[TheDitherer indecisive]] doctor of medicine.
* Xiyuan Shallot-Liu, formerly Xiyuan Liu, high-strung and [[TheWonka totally nuts]] art dealer.
* Aileen Jensen, briefly Aileen Liu, tech guru and later author who [[TheEeyore copes with her depression]] by writing self-help books.
* Shu (Xishu) Liu, Xiyuan and Aileen's [[ChildProdigy artistically gifted]] son who eschews a traditional career in favor of [[ReallyGetsAround other interests]].
The cast expands as the original six form relationships and have children. At the start of ''Apotheosis'', the story recognized seven additional sims as main characters:
* Bernard Shallot-Liu, formerly Lord Bernard Escargot Shallot IV, [[BackFromTheDead resurrected]] premade ghost who Xiyuan [[BoyMeetsGhoul falls in love with]]. An accomplished GentlemanSnarker in his own right.
* Kendra Jeong-Espinosa, Mike and Claudia's daughter, mixologist and aspiring horror poet [[NightmareFetishist with a love of all things spooky]].
* Hector Jeong-Espinosa, Mike and Claudia's teenage son and Claudia's fun-loving [[MommasBoy protegée]].
* Josephine Jeong-Espinosa, Charlie's wife, well-researched parenting expert.
* Chantel Lucas, professional synth player who started as Shu's StalkerWithACrush.
* Genevieve Haskins, pro gamer and another of Shu's romantic interests.
* Jasper Jeong-Espinosa, Charlie and Josephine's meme-obsessed young son.
Because the emergent relationship between the author and characters is part of the story, the style drastically changes between Books I and II. Book I is primarily written from Dolly's perspective as [[PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration the player]]. From Book II onward, the characters speak in their own voices and the [[NoFourthWall wallbreaking]] first-person commentary is restricted to the image captions.
''Catastrophe Theory'' is currently in its third book and is planned as a six-book series ending when the last of the original six characters has died.
[[AC: ''Catastrophe Theory'':]]
* Book I: You Can't Hide From Yourself Forever
* Book II: Open Floodgates, Closing Door
* Book III: Apotheosis
!! Catastrophe Theory provides examples of:
*AnyoneCanDie: From the start, the work is clear that it's going to end when everyone dies.
*AuthorAvatar: Dolly hints at the existence of an in-universe author avatar, but this character is never named and does not show up in the narrative. It's arguable whether she, as the player, is a character in the story.
*BrokenAce: Every one of the original six characters has mastered loads of skills, completed several aspirations, and made dozens of friends. They're also all thoroughly broken inside.
*TheCasanova: Shu is a reconstructed Casanova. Rather than dazzling the ladies with his masculine, alpha traits, he's shown to be subservient, sensitive, empathetic, and more than willing to drop everything and clean the sink. And women flock to him because of it.
*CerebusRollercoaster: It's rare for a ''Catastrophe Theory'' chapter to be lighthearted. It's even rarer to have a chapter with no jokes.
**In the prologue, Kendra plans a ritual suicide to "Let Me Borrow That Top."
**"Sunshine and Laughter" starts with Hector cracking jokes about plastic cheese. Later on in the same chapter, [[spoiler:his mother dies. Not only that, the jokes themselves may have contributed to her death.]]
*CreepyChild: Kendra spent most of her childhood drawing monsters and gore.
*DamagedSoul: Bernard's spirit is still active a century after he died. There's nothing physically wrong with him, but he retains full memory of his excruciating death.
*DeathIsCheap: Deconstructed. Although the characters can exploit game mechanics that allow them to be resurrected or to avoid death entirely, the act of dying itself is treated as a traumatic event. Furthermore, if death is cheap, what's to stop a morbidly curious sim from dying on purpose?
*DieLaughing: In The Sims 4, sims who are too Playful can become Hysterical. [[spoiler: This happens to Claudia in "Sunshine and Laughter."]]
*DysfunctionalFamily: The primary driving force of the early story. On the Jeong-Espinosa side, you have a controlling father and an alcoholic mother who aren't subtle about which child is their favorite. On the Liu side, you have a mother who parentifies her child and a father who disapproves of his son's career choices. The resurrected 19th-century manslaughterer who hates children is arguably the least toxic parent of the bunch.
*FromBadToWorse: [[spoiler:After Claudia's death, Aileen points out that Claudia has multiple ways to cheat death but may be too broken to use any of them. So, even though Claudia has a chance of finding peace, she may be too broken to even try.]]
*GRatedDrug: Along with "juice" and the "bubble blower," this universe treats mood potions as a drug because they're technically "mood-altering substances." It's unclear whether taking mood enhancers is habit-forming, but it's highly discouraged by some sims for being unnatural.
*ImmortalityHurts: Even though sims can resurrect from the dead with no observable physical consequences, they still retain memories of dying.
*LateComingOut: By the time Xiyuan comes out, he's in his early thirties with a wife and child.
*MediumAwareness: The sims have never questioned whether they live in a game, but have some knowledge of the game interface.
** During Book II, both Claudia and Kendra receive info from notifications.
** During Charlie's wedding, Mike and Kendra both dance to a wedding march that is presented as non-diegetic. This is followed by speculation about whether non-diegetic music exists in the sim world at all.
** Xiyuan and Shu are both sound-color synesthetic and perceive the hue of a sound according to the emotion they associate it with. From what we've seen in the prologue, the end of Book II, and ''Haunted,'' it's suggested that they follow the same emotion-to-color mapping as the game.
*ObliviouslyEvil: Mike is too self-absorbed to see the consequences of his actions, particularly the impact his joking has on Claudia.
*NoFourthWall: Between the narrator and audience. The AuthorAvatar is the author herself, not a fictionalized version, and she narrates as a type of PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration. The sims themselves do have a fourth wall.
*RotatingProtagonist: Officially, there is no protagonist. The character page roughly identifies one protagonist per family per generation: Xiyuan as the first-generation Liu protagonist, Shu as the second-generation Liu protagonist, and Claudia as the first-generation Jeong-Espinosa protagonist. It suggests Charlie might be the second-generation Jeong-Espinosa protagonist, although the prologue and the cover for ''Apotheosis'' both feature Kendra.
*RayOfHopeEnding: [[spoiler: The last full chapter in Book II explores Claudia's death from the perspective of the three sims who watched her die: Mike, Hector, and Aileen. Mike believes her death was an accident, Hector believes Mike murdered Claudia on purpose, and Aileen believes Claudia's death could be viewed as a suicide if she refuses to take advantage of the available methods of resurrection. After hearing each perspective, Kendra talks to Bernard about his experience with death and revival. He explains how he was able to recover from the trauma of being burned alive and live a happy second life. The chapter ends with him reassurring Kendra that Claudia will always remember her death, but it's still possible for her to find peace after all.]]
*SpinOff: A spin-off webcomic, [[https://willoughbywhippetsandtibetanspaniels.com/webcomic/?latest ''Haunted'']], explores the story's early events from Xiyuan's perspective.
*ThereAreNoTherapists: Justified. There are no therapists in the Sims 4 universe. Only basketball.
*TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Bernard delivers one to Mike at the end of Book II for being too selfish to acknowledge the consequences of his actions. Mike echoes this speech to Hector at the beginning of Book III for needing to blame someone for his problems when Hector could be considered just as responsible using the same reasoning.
*TranslationPunctuation: Characters speaking in Simlés or Mónǐ Shìmín Yǔ have their dialogue enclosed in less-than and greater-than signs.
*UnproblematicProstitution: Justified in that the nastier aspects of prostitution can't be portrayed without downloading mods. Shu instead earns money by exploiting a game mechanic: the game gives players a reward object for successfully completing a date, and it's by selling these reward objects that Shu makes a living.
*UnwantedRevival: Bernard didn't want to return as a ghost after accidentally killing himself and his wife in a fire. He did, unfortunately, and his spirit had been tethered to the Von Haunt Estate for over a century by tourists who found his story interesting.
-->-- '''[=Dolly Llama=]''', [[https://willoughbywhippetsandtibetanspaniels.com/catastrophe-theory/the-jeong-espinosa-family-surprise/ "Surprise!"]]
[[https://willoughbywhippetsandtibetanspaniels.com/catastrophe-theory/ ''Catastrophe Theory'']] is a VideoGame/TheSims4 fanfic by Dolly Llama. Depending on how pretentious you want to sound, it can be described as either a {{black|Comedy}} [[{{Dramedy}} comedy-drama]] or a work of [[{{Postmodernism}} post-postmodern]] {{metafiction}}. It started in March 2019 and is ongoing.
At the beginning of the story, there is no plot and no characters, just six sims. The author drives the narrative forward by interpreting events in the game world. For example, a sim's tendency to autonomously mix drinks becomes a drinking problem, and a man's tendency to flirt with other men in front of his wife leads to a LateComingOut story. As the plot and characters deepen, the focus shifts to complicated relationships and [[DeconstructionFic deconstructing]] the [[FalseUtopia unspoken dark implications]] of the Sims 4 universe.
Chapters roughly alternate between two families, the Jeong-Espinosas and the Lius. The original six main characters are:
* Claudia Espinosa Castillo, Mexican chef and former pro bodybuilder who goes hard on [[DrunkOnMilk "juice"]] to [[StepfordSmiler cope with her personal life]].
* Mike Jeong, ManipulativeBastard astronaut, former businessman, and former comedian.
* Charlie Jeong-Espinosa, Mike and Claudia's son who grows up to be a brilliant but [[TheDitherer indecisive]] doctor of medicine.
* Xiyuan Shallot-Liu, formerly Xiyuan Liu, high-strung and [[TheWonka totally nuts]] art dealer.
* Aileen Jensen, briefly Aileen Liu, tech guru and later author who [[TheEeyore copes with her depression]] by writing self-help books.
* Shu (Xishu) Liu, Xiyuan and Aileen's [[ChildProdigy artistically gifted]] son who eschews a traditional career in favor of [[ReallyGetsAround other interests]].
The cast expands as the original six form relationships and have children. At the start of ''Apotheosis'', the story recognized seven additional sims as main characters:
* Bernard Shallot-Liu, formerly Lord Bernard Escargot Shallot IV, [[BackFromTheDead resurrected]] premade ghost who Xiyuan [[BoyMeetsGhoul falls in love with]]. An accomplished GentlemanSnarker in his own right.
* Kendra Jeong-Espinosa, Mike and Claudia's daughter, mixologist and aspiring horror poet [[NightmareFetishist with a love of all things spooky]].
* Hector Jeong-Espinosa, Mike and Claudia's teenage son and Claudia's fun-loving [[MommasBoy protegée]].
* Josephine Jeong-Espinosa, Charlie's wife, well-researched parenting expert.
* Chantel Lucas, professional synth player who started as Shu's StalkerWithACrush.
* Genevieve Haskins, pro gamer and another of Shu's romantic interests.
* Jasper Jeong-Espinosa, Charlie and Josephine's meme-obsessed young son.
Because the emergent relationship between the author and characters is part of the story, the style drastically changes between Books I and II. Book I is primarily written from Dolly's perspective as [[PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration the player]]. From Book II onward, the characters speak in their own voices and the [[NoFourthWall wallbreaking]] first-person commentary is restricted to the image captions.
''Catastrophe Theory'' is currently in its third book and is planned as a six-book series ending when the last of the original six characters has died.
[[AC: ''Catastrophe Theory'':]]
* Book I: You Can't Hide From Yourself Forever
* Book II: Open Floodgates, Closing Door
* Book III: Apotheosis
!! Catastrophe Theory provides examples of:
*AnyoneCanDie: From the start, the work is clear that it's going to end when everyone dies.
*AuthorAvatar: Dolly hints at the existence of an in-universe author avatar, but this character is never named and does not show up in the narrative. It's arguable whether she, as the player, is a character in the story.
*BrokenAce: Every one of the original six characters has mastered loads of skills, completed several aspirations, and made dozens of friends. They're also all thoroughly broken inside.
*TheCasanova: Shu is a reconstructed Casanova. Rather than dazzling the ladies with his masculine, alpha traits, he's shown to be subservient, sensitive, empathetic, and more than willing to drop everything and clean the sink. And women flock to him because of it.
*CerebusRollercoaster: It's rare for a ''Catastrophe Theory'' chapter to be lighthearted. It's even rarer to have a chapter with no jokes.
**In the prologue, Kendra plans a ritual suicide to "Let Me Borrow That Top."
**"Sunshine and Laughter" starts with Hector cracking jokes about plastic cheese. Later on in the same chapter, [[spoiler:his mother dies. Not only that, the jokes themselves may have contributed to her death.]]
*CreepyChild: Kendra spent most of her childhood drawing monsters and gore.
*DamagedSoul: Bernard's spirit is still active a century after he died. There's nothing physically wrong with him, but he retains full memory of his excruciating death.
*DeathIsCheap: Deconstructed. Although the characters can exploit game mechanics that allow them to be resurrected or to avoid death entirely, the act of dying itself is treated as a traumatic event. Furthermore, if death is cheap, what's to stop a morbidly curious sim from dying on purpose?
*DieLaughing: In The Sims 4, sims who are too Playful can become Hysterical. [[spoiler: This happens to Claudia in "Sunshine and Laughter."]]
*DysfunctionalFamily: The primary driving force of the early story. On the Jeong-Espinosa side, you have a controlling father and an alcoholic mother who aren't subtle about which child is their favorite. On the Liu side, you have a mother who parentifies her child and a father who disapproves of his son's career choices. The resurrected 19th-century manslaughterer who hates children is arguably the least toxic parent of the bunch.
*FromBadToWorse: [[spoiler:After Claudia's death, Aileen points out that Claudia has multiple ways to cheat death but may be too broken to use any of them. So, even though Claudia has a chance of finding peace, she may be too broken to even try.]]
*GRatedDrug: Along with "juice" and the "bubble blower," this universe treats mood potions as a drug because they're technically "mood-altering substances." It's unclear whether taking mood enhancers is habit-forming, but it's highly discouraged by some sims for being unnatural.
*ImmortalityHurts: Even though sims can resurrect from the dead with no observable physical consequences, they still retain memories of dying.
*LateComingOut: By the time Xiyuan comes out, he's in his early thirties with a wife and child.
*MediumAwareness: The sims have never questioned whether they live in a game, but have some knowledge of the game interface.
** During Book II, both Claudia and Kendra receive info from notifications.
** During Charlie's wedding, Mike and Kendra both dance to a wedding march that is presented as non-diegetic. This is followed by speculation about whether non-diegetic music exists in the sim world at all.
** Xiyuan and Shu are both sound-color synesthetic and perceive the hue of a sound according to the emotion they associate it with. From what we've seen in the prologue, the end of Book II, and ''Haunted,'' it's suggested that they follow the same emotion-to-color mapping as the game.
*ObliviouslyEvil: Mike is too self-absorbed to see the consequences of his actions, particularly the impact his joking has on Claudia.
*NoFourthWall: Between the narrator and audience. The AuthorAvatar is the author herself, not a fictionalized version, and she narrates as a type of PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration. The sims themselves do have a fourth wall.
*RotatingProtagonist: Officially, there is no protagonist. The character page roughly identifies one protagonist per family per generation: Xiyuan as the first-generation Liu protagonist, Shu as the second-generation Liu protagonist, and Claudia as the first-generation Jeong-Espinosa protagonist. It suggests Charlie might be the second-generation Jeong-Espinosa protagonist, although the prologue and the cover for ''Apotheosis'' both feature Kendra.
*RayOfHopeEnding: [[spoiler: The last full chapter in Book II explores Claudia's death from the perspective of the three sims who watched her die: Mike, Hector, and Aileen. Mike believes her death was an accident, Hector believes Mike murdered Claudia on purpose, and Aileen believes Claudia's death could be viewed as a suicide if she refuses to take advantage of the available methods of resurrection. After hearing each perspective, Kendra talks to Bernard about his experience with death and revival. He explains how he was able to recover from the trauma of being burned alive and live a happy second life. The chapter ends with him reassurring Kendra that Claudia will always remember her death, but it's still possible for her to find peace after all.]]
*SpinOff: A spin-off webcomic, [[https://willoughbywhippetsandtibetanspaniels.com/webcomic/?latest ''Haunted'']], explores the story's early events from Xiyuan's perspective.
*ThereAreNoTherapists: Justified. There are no therapists in the Sims 4 universe. Only basketball.
*TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Bernard delivers one to Mike at the end of Book II for being too selfish to acknowledge the consequences of his actions. Mike echoes this speech to Hector at the beginning of Book III for needing to blame someone for his problems when Hector could be considered just as responsible using the same reasoning.
*TranslationPunctuation: Characters speaking in Simlés or Mónǐ Shìmín Yǔ have their dialogue enclosed in less-than and greater-than signs.
*UnproblematicProstitution: Justified in that the nastier aspects of prostitution can't be portrayed without downloading mods. Shu instead earns money by exploiting a game mechanic: the game gives players a reward object for successfully completing a date, and it's by selling these reward objects that Shu makes a living.
*UnwantedRevival: Bernard didn't want to return as a ghost after accidentally killing himself and his wife in a fire. He did, unfortunately, and his spirit had been tethered to the Von Haunt Estate for over a century by tourists who found his story interesting.
