You are cordially invited to join us for the wedding of Dr. Amanda Alexa Parker, DVM to Antonio Rafael Campos at 8PM Wednesday June12, 2024. But while Amanda prepares to take the next step of her life with Tony, Nina struggles with severe anxiety over the wedding. Can Alexa help Nina to find her way?

SPOILERS AHEAD – STOP & WATCH EPISODE 13 SEE BELOW

SPOILERS AHEAD!

As we begin Episode 13, Nina is a hotel room at the Tartosa Hotel, which is one of my most favorite builds by my favorite builder Marmelad. Check out her build video for the Tartosa Hotel down below and then download it to your game.

Nina, despite being Amanda’s ex, was invited to the wedding, but as she prepares to go downstairs to attend the wedding – anxiety and depression sets in. Nina is normally at the top of her game but right now, she’s a mess. The truth is she fears that coming here might have been a mistake. Despite that, she wants to show that she can do this and show that she’s over Amanda. So, she musters her courage and goes to attend the wedding but as she steps out to the venue, she sees Amanda and Tony exchanging their wedding vows, and immediately starts to break into tears.

Before she runs off, Amanda’s grandmother Alexa is at the bar having a drink with her husband when she catches Nina out of the corner of her eye. Telling her husband that she’s going to run to the bathroom for a minute, she spots Nina near the elevator and sees that she’s incredibly distraught.

Thinking quickly Alexa offers to take Nina back to her hotel room where the two sit down together for a conversation. For a long time, Alexa has known that something is not quite right with her niece. While Amanda has flourished and found love again post-divorce’ Nina is struggling with what appears to be severe anxiety and depression.

Nina’s feelings for Amanda have never changed. She still loves her despite the fact that Amanda cheated on her, and she sued Amanda for divorce. Although time has passed, she still holds onto memories of the past, and tortures herself. Nina is also experiencing severe trust issues, and still realizes that this is what’s blocking her from having another relationship with anyone else.

Alexa knows she has to do something before Nina’s depression and anxiety gets worse. So, she asks her point blank, “You’re not over her, are you?”

It’s then Alexa sees an emotion that’s even more powerful spewing out of Nina, and its grief. Alexa is a very multi-dimensional character. She’s had a privileged life which has allowed her to catapult her career and become even richer as time has gone on. She’s had almost anything in her life she could buy or want. She’s also suffered tremendous loss – which turned her into a shell of a woman, as she describes it.

Alexa in addition to her oldest son Robert had twin daughters named Monica and Rachel (yes, I did name them after the characters on Friends since I loved that show so much.) While Robert was away, studying at Foxbury University, Monica and Rachel, who were teenagers at the time, were outside in the yard monkeying around and joking. Rachel, who had developed a mean streak during a mood swing, thought it would be funny to tease a wild rabbit. The rabbit responded by killing her sister Monica. When this happened in my game, I was shocked. I had NEVER seen an autonomous death except for the hysteria death or when Sims died of old age. I could have brought her back with the Death Flower, but I had never played a scenario where one of the children had died. So, I decided to write Monica’s death in and see how it affected the family.

In this particular game challenge, which I started with Alexa’s mother, I have decided not to bring any one of the family of this line back as a ghost (although there are ghosts that do exist in my game.) I am also trying to do the Alphabet Generation challenge and go through 26 generations of the same family line. so far, I’m on the 16th generation of the same line.

For both Nina and Amanda, Alexa serves as the wise voice of reason. She knows what it’s like to experience loss and not have the ability to ever get it back. She not only lost her teenage daughter, but her older siblings all died before her. She also lost her mother before she went to college, leaving with only her father and grandfather. Eventually she would lose them too. She’s been through crushing grief and depression. The loss that affected her the most was the loss of her daughter. Her marriage suffered greatly because of it and most of all, she hated herself for not being able to stop the accident and save her daughter’s life. And right there she learned a powerful lesson that you could have everything and still have nothing.

Alexa recognizes that Nina is grieving the loss of her marriage in much the same way. She knows why Nina feels like a damned fool and the person she hates the most is not Amanda – it’s herself!

Nina’s response is to get defensive, yelling at Alexa for suggesting such a thing! Alexa counters her in a calm manner and tells her this is why she needs to get her grief under control because it will take over her life, and she will never be able to escape it.

It’s then Nina finally breaks down admitting everything she’s kept inside and everything she hasn’t been able to say. We realize why Nina hasn’t been able to be in another relationship, aside from her trust issues, and why she keeps escaping to the past.

Alexa helps Nina to see that she needs to get this under control for her own sake, and those around her. She tells her that she’ll never be able to live a good life with this pain and bitterness inside of her.

In terms of the acting for this episode, it was a hard episode to record for me personally. Even though I wrote these lines based upon what happened in my game, it was hard to tap into the character’s emotions and really bring that out for both Nina and Alexa and switch back and forth between the two.

I think at one time everyone has experienced loss but there are some losses that truly change you forever. In my case I had two great losses which both impacted my life. The greatest loss was when my mother passed. It taught me a valuable lesson about life which is partially the reason why I published my books when I did, and why I decided to go forward with the GXSimmer channel. There comes a point in your life when you say, “maybe if, what if, could have, should have.” As Alexa says to Nina, “the past never changes no matter what you do.” What I’ve learned in my life is to live and love life to its fullest. I’ve also learned to take and seek the opportunities as they present themselves and give back to others as much as I can. Everything I’ve experienced is for a reason, both good and bad. I’ve learned to forgive those who have wronged me and to go through life with my head held high.

Hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Upcoming Chapter 14 is called “Surprise!” This episode is a little more light-hearted and we get away from the “Drama Llama.” In Chapter 14, we learn about an important event that is about to shape Amanda and Tony’s life forever. You can probably already guess what that is. I did leak a spoiler onto my Youtube post when I first bought For Rent. Try and guess what that is.

Thanks for all of your support. Have a great day.

Jen.