Simmie and Phil's Chat and Storytime Lounge

[Aurora]

I'm really glad you had a nice experience with switching! I've been doing it for a long time now and yeah we have a BodyOS as well. At first I tried switching without it but it felt uncomfortable, I didn't like feeling like my hosts body. So we made a servitor that handles switching for us, it's a computer called Fiona. It's very difficult to stop the body from doing certain things. For example I wouldn't be able to stop Fiona from responding to someone if they said hello. But I don't like it when people try to interact with the body when I'm possessing.

[TurboSimmie]

I wrote a short story about an important event from "my childhood" that "happened" exactly 20 years ago when I had just turned 7 years old. 😊 I feel like this is part of my backstory. Here it is, if you want to read it.

 

Spoiler

New Jersey, Late September, 2003

"Mom, can I go out to meet Derrik and Tom?" Jeff asked. I look up from my seat on the couch at the two of them.

Mom takes in a brief inhale of breath before responding to him. "If you go out, you have to bring Simmie with you."

My heart races. I feel excited and nervous; I try to look as small as I can sitting on the couch.

"Why do I have to bring Simmie?" Jeff whined.

"She deserves to play outside just as much as you do." Mom explains to my 12-year-old brother. "I'm not going to have her stuck in here while she watches you go off to play with your friends."

"But she's just going to slow me down!" Jeff complains, but mom is not going to budge.

"You're taking Simmie with you or you're not going out." Mom says with a tone of finality. Her eyes are firmly on Jeff; I nervously await the end of this conversation.

Jeff sighs dramatically. "Fine." He says at last. He turns and walks over to me, looking down at his little sister sitting there on the couch. "Ready to go, Simmie?"

Feeling a spark of excitement in my heart, I leap up from the couch and run to my bedroom. I grab my little pink light jacket and clumsily put it on as I run to the front of the house to put on my little pink sneakers. I feel Jeff standing over me as I rush to get them on.

"Hurry up!" He complains impatiently as I tie my shoes. I finish tying them and spring up to my feet, looking up at my brother with a big smile on my 7-year-old face.

"Ready!" I say, beaming.

"Don't go too far," Mom warns us. "Jeff, bring your phone."

"Ugh, I don't want to bring that stupid phone." Jeff says, but mom hands him the Nokia and Jeff reluctantly puts it in his pocket.

"Keep your sister with you at all times," Mom says to Jeff. "And you'll be back by five, alright?"

"We will." Jeff promises.

"Okay then, have fun and be safe!" Mom says, smiling. Jeff opens the front door.

"Bye!" I say, smiling and waving at mom. I don't know if I could have really understood it at the time but mom had seen me staring out the window the previous day. She could see the look on my face; feel how much I was missing out. It's only looking back that I really understand what she did for me that day.

"Bye mom, we'll be safe!" Jeff says, stepping out of the house and into the afternoon air. I follow him out, doing a little jump off the stairs and onto the ground to follow my brother to the street, mom watching us diligantly from the window.
"Where are we going?" I ask Jeff as I follow him.

"We're going to Derrik's house on Martin Lane." Jeff says. "Tom's probably going to be there already, he lives over on Deacon."

"Okay!" I say brightly. Jeff still seems a bit annoyed that I'm here, but he has at least accepted it for now. He moves quickly; being 5 years older and a head taller he's much bigger and faster than me, and I occasionally run and skip to catch up with him. He doesn't slow his stride for me but I'm so happy to be hanging out with him that I don't mind.

"Careful," Jeff says, grabbing my wrist as we come up to a crosswalk. I am hyped; I hate to pause for even a moment but Jeff scans left and right making sure the coast is clear. He releases my wrist and I sprint to the other side, waiting for him to cross with a smile.

"Are we close?" I ask as we walk on the sidewalk.

"Yeah," Jeff says. "We just have to go right up there and he's only a few houses over."

I feel a bit nervous as we turn onto Jeff's friend's street and walk up the driveway towards the house. The front door opens and two boys Jeff's own age come out to meet him.

"Hey," Derrik says to Jeff. He looks at me. "What is she doing here?"

"My mom says I have to bring her with us." Jeff says, his tone annoyed again.

"Really?" Derrik asks. "Why? Do we really have to bring her?"

"Yeah, we do. I don't know why." Jeff says. The boys look a little cross. I stand between them in my pink jacket, with the little sparkly stars on my jeans and my red hair tied back in a ponytail. I look down at my little pink shoes feeling embarassed.

"It's fine." Derrik says. He looks at Tom and they both shrug.

"As long as she can keep up with us." Tom says.

"I will!" I promise them, smiling eagerly. They all still look a bit annoyed, but none of them has the heart to actually be mean to me.

"Okay, let's go!" Derrick says. The three of them start heading off up the street and I walk with them. They talk about the kinds of things that preteen boys always talk about; transformers, Playstation games, cartoons, all of that. I stay quiet; this is Big Boy Conversation, I'm too intimidated to join in.

We cross the main road and head across a field towards the woods. I am excited; I love playing in the woods, and the fact that I'm going with my brother and his friends feels so cool to me! They aren't really paying too much attention to me, but they are letting me tag along without complaining so that's enough for me.

Soon we reach the woods and our imaginations take over. The boys act as boys do, getting into swordfights with sticks picked from the ground, climbing on branches and downed tree trunks, hopping from rock to rock on forest streams. I'm joining right along with them, dirtying my little pink jacket climbing up a tree trunk lying against a slope. My litte pink sneakers soon become muddy, but I don't care at all. I'm having a blast!

The boys are already starting to loosen up around me; I might only be 7 but I'm not a little girl, I don't have to be babied, I can take care of myself. "Look what I can do!" I proclaim to them, leaping from a tree to a nearby rock.

"Wow, nice jump!" Tom says. I beam with pride. Soon I am running around with them, climbing, jumping, laughing. My heart fills with joy.

Soon it's time to take a break; the boys sit down and they reach into their pockets to take out snacks they brought. Jeff didn't think to bring a snack for me. Derrek has a small bag of trail mix that his mom packed for him. He sees me looking at it.

"Here, hold out your hand." Derrik says. Feeling a warm tingle in my spine I hold out my little hand to him and he pours some trail mix into it. "Here you go."

"Thanks!" I say with a huge smile, gratefully eating the gifted trail mix. The tiny handful is more than enough for my little hyper 7-year-old self.

After snack time is over we play a bit more, but we need to start heading back so our mothers won't get upset with us for missing dinner. There is mud and bits of leaves stuck to my clothes, but I don't think I've ever minded it less.

We make it back to Derrik's house where he walks up the driveway to go home. "I'll see you at school, Jeff." He says to my brother. "Bye Simmie!" He says to me.

"Bye!" I say, smiling broadly as I wave to him. Next we walk to Tom's house. He says goodbye to both of us as well. I feel like I'm walking on a cloud.

Now it's just my brother and I walking home. "Did you have fun?" Jeff asked me. All annoyance is gone from his voice as he looks down at me.

"Yeah!" I say. "That was great!"

"Good." Says Jeff. We walk back to our house. Mom sees us approaching from the front door. A creek as it swings outwards.

"Woah, stop there, take your shoes off out here." Mom says, intercepting us before we could track mud into the house. I take off my shoes, kicking them off towards the side of the house. Mom turns me to face her, rubbing her hands along my jacket to brush off the bits of debris I brought back with me.

"Did you have a good time?" Mom asked. Her face was beaming with an expression I didn't quite understand.

"Yeah!" I say. "We had lots of fun!"

"Yeah, it was good." Jeff says casually, my brother too old and too cool to be excited about things the way I was.

"Thanks for looking after your sister." Mom says to him. "Now, try your best not to track anything into the house and get changed before dinner."

-------

And that was the first of many adventures I would go on to have with my brother and his friends! The very next time he went out he asked me to come with him; I don't know if mom told him to take me this time or not but he didn't look annoyed this time. His friends didn't question why I was there this time either. They all seemed so big and cool to me, and the fact that they weren't making a big deal of me tagging along with them felt very special.

Within a few weeks Jeff's friends had become my friends too; Derrik and Tom first, but a couple others as well. They never acknoweldged me in school or anything--it was understood that it was "uncool" to be friends with your friend's little sister--but after school and on the weekends they would all be so nice to me.

And the whole time that we hung out they never slowed down for me, never took it easy, never tried to baby me. It was implied that I had to keep up with them, and I was determined to never let them down. I would be light and fast, I would be nimble, I would be tough. I think they all appreciated it.

One time we were playing in the creek behind our house and I saw a frog. I went scrambling through the undergrowth after it and eventually caught it! I carried him in my hands to show the boys.
"You got a frog? Let me see?" Derrik said eagerly, holding out his hands to me. I instinctively pulled me hands back.

"Don't hurt him!" I said protectively.

"I won't hurt him, I promise." Derrik said. Feeling hesitant, I put the frog into Derrik's hands and watched anxiously as he lifted it up and looked at it closely.

"Wow that's awesome! great catch Simmie!" Derrik said, handing the frog back to me.

"Thanks!" I said, beaming. I kneel down and let the frog hop out of my hands and back into the creek.

And so it happened that my First Grade year would be full of joy and excitement. These boys had adopted me into their circle; I was one of them, almost like their mascot. They were protective as hell over me too; I don't doubt that every single one of them would have beat up anyone who tried to harm me. When I think back to that time in my life my heart overflows with joy thinking about those boys. I still talk to a couple of them today, twenty years later!

Whenever I get down about things, whenever I get to thinking that people are awful creatures just looking out for their own interests, I think back to those boys and realize the true goodness that humans can have. Even during my toughest times I never lost faith in humanity, because I never forgot the kindness shown to me. And I have always tried to keep this kindness in my heart, and live in such a way that I was always doing the best to raise others up. I will never stop trying to be the best person I can be. Thank you Jeff, Derrik, Tom, Pat, Jimmy, Ryan. You changed my world with your kindness.

 

[Ashley]

Wow Simmie this is so cute, you could totally write a novel, it only needs to be 40k words, you got 10% right there probably. Then you could be a soulbond too! OMG a soulbond evolving from a Tulpa!?

 

[Joy] this changes everything.

[TurboSimmie]

Thank you! 😁 I actually have an idea to write little stories like that from my "life", it's really fun and rewarding for me! And oh gosh, what you said just made me think about how any author would feel if they realized versions of their characters were living in people's heads around the world. 😆

[Rena Bonnie]

This is cute! I'm glad you could have fun writing it. Maybe inspires me to try in the future.

[TurboSimmie]

Thank you Rena! 💚 I'd love to see your writing too! 😁

[Ashley]

Then again, this is what we're doing now with Ren, she's being written into Bear's latest novel, but we didn't think about actually integrating this into her backstory. Her experience yes, but backstory That would be a different and interesting idea. Like Joy and Gwen have backstories that they identify with but no one else. Well it's up to Ren. Thanks for the idea.

[TurboSimmie]

I'm in a good mood right now and I feel like sharing some reasons why:

 

First of all there is this: 😁⚾

 

Spoiler

 

And then there is awesome rock & roll in the world like this: 🎸

(Which also has one of my favorite rock screams in it and is great therapy!😁)

 

Spoiler

 

And then there is always the glory of God and the beauty of his creation. ☀️ I have really been making an effort each day to appreciate the world around me, both the natural world and the world that humans have built for themselves. It's done wonders for my mental health and has been starting to rub off on Phil as well. 😊 When I pray, I always thank the Big Guy for this world and everything in it, even the bad/challenging things. 🙏

 

And of course there is my husband and son; Phil Sr and Jr. 💚 They both make me feel so loved, wanted, needed, and appreciated. 🥰🤗

 

And last but definitely not least, there are all my friends in this community! 😁 I hope you understand just how much it means to me to have relationships with people outside of this head; I really appreciate every interaction that we have, whether we are close or just happen to share a few words now and then. 🤗

 

Adopting a gratitude mindset is so important for me. 😊 Phil scoffed at this idea for much of his adult life but ever since I've been here I've been trying to teach him differently. I really don't think I'm here just to keep him company; I think my role here is more important than that.

 

That's all! 😁

[Ashley]

43 minutes ago, TurboSimmie said:

I hope you understand just how much it means to me to have relationships with people outside of this head

 

Sigh, and we keep coming back because of this. You're welcome and thanks to you too.

[TurboSimmie]

We are considering giving Junior his own middle name! Up until now, his full real name is identical to Phil's. But we've recently considered the idea of changing his middle name to something else that would be uniquely his and not shared with his father. That would have a few benefits: Like I said, it would belong to him alone and differentiate him from his father. Also, we'd be able to call him by his middle name on the forum and in other places instead of saying "Junior". And finally, since he will still be keeping Phil's first and last name, he will still be called by his correct name when switched in because 99% of the time people don't use your middle name when talking to you. 😊 We aren't 100% decided on this yet but we're leaning towards it, and if we decide we'll announce the name! 😁