{"id":689,"date":"2019-03-17T22:51:44","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T02:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/?p=689"},"modified":"2019-03-21T21:53:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T01:53:26","slug":"a-job-well-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/a-job-well-done\/","title":{"rendered":"A Job Well Done."},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve\u00a0been playing The Sims pretty much since the series first came out in the early 2000s. There\u00a0was even a time when a site I ran about the exploits of my Sims was way more popular than my own online journal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve played 1, 2, and 4 (I never felt confident my computer could handle 3 and besides, those Sims are ugly), but the Sims 2 pulls\u00a0me back time and again. Yes, it\u2019s got lots of drawbacks compared to the later versions; I\u2019d never argue otherwise.<\/p>\n

But after all these years, I still love playing\u00a0the premade families and their bizarre, interlocking stories.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In particular, I love Strangetown’s Nervous Subject. I adore him and his Mohawk and all his sad-eyed weirdness and quirkiness.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you aren’t familiar with\u00a0the Sims 2, Nervous\u2019s game-given backstory is that Circe and Loki Beaker, a married couple who are both extremely smart and incredibly mean, took Nervous into their home and subjected him to all kinds of awful experiments, robbing him of his original personality and messing with his head.<\/p>\n

Oh, and also? His birth parents are Olive Specter, who is by general belief the Strangetown serial killer \u2026 and the Grim Reaper himself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gee, I wonder why I\u2019m so drawn to him?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Whenever I start a new save of Strangetown, I almost always begin by getting\u00a0Nervous out of the Beaker house and into a more favorable situation.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0in my early days of playing Strangetown, I sometimes wondered: Didn’t\u00a0the other Strangetowners know what happened to him? Weren’t they at least curious about what was going on in that big spooky mansion? Why didn\u2019t they do anything?<\/p>\n

And I started imagining what would happen if one of his kids found out about what the Beakers did\u00a0to him–and decided to extract some payback.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I wrote this story\u00a0quite a long time ago, but it\u2019s not doing anyone any good sitting on my hard drive and I know Sims 2 still has some fans, so I thought maybe someone else might enjoy it. I apologize that some of the screencaps\u00a0are awful; hopefully they\u2019ll still work to get the ideas across.\u00a0(Andie Jones in the story was\u00a0one of my own Sims.)<\/span><\/p>\n

——————————\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A JOB WELL DONE<\/strong><\/p>\n

My name is Moon Subject. You may not know me, but you almost certainly know about my father, Nervous. After all, everyone\u00a0in Strangetown seems to know about the extremely odd, shy man who once lived with Loki and Circe Beaker. But most of them do not know what happened to him afterwards. <\/span><\/p>\n

Years ago, after he\u2019d left the Beaker household, he was abducted by aliens.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Although the inevitable outcome of alien abduction of adult males is quite well documented, I\u2019m told that Nervous was very\u00a0surprised when, three days later, he gave birth to a son. Me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And this\u00a0was likely one of the less<\/em>\u00a0traumatic things that had happened in Nervous Subject\u2019s life up to that point.<\/p>\n

His mother Olive Specter was a foul-tempered harridan on a good day, and rumors about what had happened to her many husbands–and others who crossed her–were all over Strangetown. She lost custody of my father while he was still quite young. That may have been the only lucky break my father got in his early life.<\/p>\n

And then there were the rumors about who his<\/em> father was.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t–and don\u2019t–understand how such a thing could\u00a0even be possible. But what is indisputable is that\u00a0my father had no parental figures growing up.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was\u00a0very, very easy prey for selfish, amoral people. People who needed a test subject who wouldn\u2019t be missed by anyone, and who nobody would care\u00a0to protect.<\/p>\n

Even his absurd name, \u201cNervous Subject,\u201d was something those people gave him. My father never\u00a0seemed bothered by this. He claimed\u00a0his name before that had been \u201cBaby Boy Specter,\u201d and at least Nervous Subject was memorable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He stayed with those people until a young woman named Andie Jones, who was researching some of Strangetown\u2019s legendary stories for a book she planned to write, interviewed him. It wasn\u2019t easy to keep meeting him privately without the Beakers catching on, but she felt drawn to him. It took her a long time to gain his trust and an even longer time to convince him to leave the only home he\u2019d ever really known, but eventually my father moved in with her family. I was born in her house, and she helped raise me. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHelped,\u201d in fact, doesn\u2019t do her justice. <\/span>She<\/span><\/i> raised me. My father helped. A bit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that he\u2019s ever been a <\/span>bad<\/span><\/i> father to me; I do believe that he cares for me and that he\u2019d like me to have the parental support that he never had.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s just that never having had that support himself, and indeed after suffering years of abuse, he doesn\u2019t understand how to offer it. He shows affection sporadically, when I\u2019m not expecting it, and it always seems like something he\u2019s doing because he believes he\u2019s supposed to.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And he cannot relate at all to most people. He scowls at them when they attempt to be kind and wanders away in the middle of conversations. Most people don\u2019t bother to get to know him. Even for Strangetown, he is just too strange.<\/p>\n

Growing up, I figured out quickly that something wasn\u2019t right about my father, but nobody would tell me what had happened to him. I overheard little snatches of conversation that broke off when I approached, but nothing more.<\/p>\n

At college I started looking around on the Internet, searching Strangetown message boards and digging into online information archives until I found out the truth. How my father had started life as a friendly, outgoing boy, and why he had turned out the way he had.<\/p>\n

I wanted to scream. I wanted to break things. I wanted to hurt someone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I told my\u00a0father\u00a0to file charges, to make sure his tormentors couldn\u2019t do that to anyone else again, but he\u2019d have none of it. He\u2019d put all that behind him, he said. He wanted nothing more to do with that part of his life, or with those people. <\/span><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t willing to let things go that easily.<\/p>\n

In college, I told the registrar that my ambition was to be a mad scientist. She chuckled at that, but I was quite serious. I want to be a scientist \u2026 and I’m very mad at someone.<\/p>\n

Two someones, to be specific.<\/p>\n


\n<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These two\u00a0had been obscenely lucky; without my father\u2019s word, nobody could prove they\u2019d done anything. And yet everyone seemed to <\/span>know<\/span><\/i> what they\u2019d done. The rumors and stories were all over the Internet and all over town.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that was why I arrived at the Beaker mansion shortly after graduating from Academie Le Tour.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

Loki and Circe Beaker had had little luck hiring new \u201cresearch assistants\u201d over the years; nobody in Strangetown wanted to subject themselves to the same torture my father had endured at their hands, and the few who were foolish enough to do so left the Beakers\u2019 employ rather quickly.<\/p>\n

The Beakers looked\u00a0quite happy when I answered their “Help Wanted” ad and told them I was Moon Thompson, a recent graduate looking for something beyond the standard entry-level science positions offered via Strangetown’s online job site. Loki seemed particularly intrigued by the opportunity to work with an alien hybrid.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is quite exciting,\u201d he said. \u201cAre you a first generation hybrid?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yes. I was born directly from an abduction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd where is your father now?\u201d Circe\u2019s eyes narrowed as she listened to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid I don\u2019t really know.\u201d I\u2019d rehearsed this part of the story several times. I needed the Beakers to believe I wouldn\u2019t be missed. \u201cHe \u2026 well, he wasn\u2019t very happy about having an alien hybrid child. He thought it was\u00a0shameful. When I left for college, there was an understanding that I was leaving for good. I live by myself now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see. Well, you\u2019ll find none of that foolish prejudice here. I\u2019ve heard that alien hybrids are far more resilient than their human counterparts,\u201d Loki said with an unnerving laugh. Knowing what the Beakers had done to my father, I found that remark about resilience rather disturbing. Loki\u2019s eyes glittered cruelly under his severe brow, while Circe regarded me very coolly.<\/p>\n

I disliked the heavy glasses I wore and the hair that covered part of my face, but they were necessary. My father’s facial structure is quite distinctive and I inherited it almost exactly; I needed to camouflage it as much as possible lest the Beakers guess my relation to their previous subject. I hoped that my black eyes, green skin, and odd nose would draw attention away from the features that were clearly Father\u2019s<\/p>\n

\"\"Once they had offered me the position, as well as room and board in their house, I began to plan. I walked around the house, looking for anything they owned that could be of use to me.<\/p>\n

The house was enormous and dungeonlike, with stone walls and small windows that let in very little light — and prevented neighbors from seeing what went on inside, no doubt. I thought I could smell chemicals and a faint odor of seared flesh, but I might have imagined the latter.<\/p>\n

I walked down a retractable staircase and explored the deep, damp pit that had probably\u00a0served as my father\u2019s bedroom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I looked at their array of bizarre scientific stations and wondered which ones had robbed my father of his personality.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Loki and Circe began their testing on me almost immediately, and it was nearly unbearable. They subjected me to intensely painful experiments, and they berated me when I didn\u2019t recover quickly enough to suit them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How had my father endured this all these years? Being in the house where he had suffered so much for so long was terribly difficult, more so than I\u2019d ever expected. On some days, I wasn\u2019t sure I\u2019d have the mental strength to do what needed to be done.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But I kept my mouth shut and my eyes open, and my vigilance paid off. Something I came to understand after spending a few days with them: Whatever their other faults, the Beakers genuinely loved each other. They were not shy about showing it in front of me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And that knowledge helped my planning immensely. <\/span><\/p>\n

I didn’t <\/span>need<\/span><\/i> to harm both of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

I only needed to harm one of them.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

I hadn’t intended\u00a0to put my plans into motion so soon, but Loki and Circe got hostile and combative quite early on. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re weak,\u201d Circe shouted at me one afternoon. \u201cEmbarrassingly weak. I must say that if you\u2019re typical of alien hybrids, I\u2019m very underwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDid I ever tell you this would be easy, boy?\u201d Loki said after another traumatic day. \u201cYour generation makes me ill. You\u2019re pampered and spoiled, and you expect to be handed a fortune for doing as little as possible. Well, you won\u2019t be getting a free ride here.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If I delayed my plan too long, I\u2019d be too weakened from their experiments to fight back.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was so, so simple in the end: Wait for Circe to leave for a business trip, drug Loki, lure him to the same pit where my father spent his days, wait for him to pass out on my father’s old bed \u2026 and remove the staircase, as well as anything\u00a0around the house that someone might\u00a0use to attempt to help him out.<\/p>\n

And once Loki\u00a0was safely in my father’s pit, start looking through their files, and making copies of everything.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So very easy. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For me.<\/p>\n

Day One of confinement: The subject hums to himself and does not yet appear to understand his dire circumstances. Or perhaps he doesn\u2019t want me to see him in distress. He\u00a0does keep muttering that when I let him out of that pit, he\u2019ll finish me. This doesn\u2019t really make me want to free him.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Soon enough, though, the effects of his confinement began to wear on him. Dr. Beaker was a very, very neat Sim, and when he was forced to soil himself, it upset him deeply.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

His tears of humiliation delighted me. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Soon after that, Circe returned home and discovered what had become of her beloved husband; this was Stage Two of my plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Moon! What on earth have you done? Put the staircase back in and get him out of there right now!”<\/span><\/p>\n

“I’m sorry. Perhaps I forgot to tell you that Dr. Beaker is <\/span>my<\/span><\/i> test subject now. I’m studying the effects of food deprivation on adult male Sims. How long do you suppose it will take before he approaches the Cowplant?”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"“WHAT?”<\/p>\n

I had “borrowed”\u00a0a <\/span>Laganaphyllis Simnovorii <\/span><\/i>from college, and it was now\u00a0<\/span>in the pit with Dr. Beaker. This bizarre carnivorous plant feeds itself by producing a substance that looks remarkably like cake, enticing nearby Sims to grab it–and be devoured. All Sims learn the expression “Beware Cowplants bearing cake” in childhood. I wondered if a starving man would throw that caution to the wind.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Circe was infuriated.<\/span><\/p>\n

“You sick, sick bastard.\u00a0You really think I can’t get Loki out of there? You have no idea what you\u2019re up against. What do you think we’re going to do to you once he’s free again?”<\/span><\/p>\n

I had, of course, thought that through already.<\/p>\n

“Circe, if I am arrested,<\/span>\u00a0you\u2019re both going to prison with me. I\u2019ve made copies of as much of your research as I could find, which is more than enough to send both of you to jail for a long time. I’ll call the police right now, if you like.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEverything we\u2019ve done is perfectly legal,\u201d she snarled. \u201cOur subjects volunteered. They were compensated and free to leave whenever they wished. You\u2019ll be very disappointed if you\u2019re expecting us to join you in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree that the Strangetown government doesn\u2019t seem to care what you do to living beings, but they certainly don\u2019t like being deprived of money they believe to be theirs, and I\u2019ve found plenty of information about the various ways you and Loki have been cheating on your taxes. Your research isn\u2019t the only thing I\u2019ve copied. Either Dr. Beaker remains exactly where he is, or both of you rot in the Strangetown Penitentiary. Your choice, Circe.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are you doing this?\u201d she whimpered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor science. Just like you.\u201d That was all I\u2019d give her for now. She backed down; apparently, even her love for Dr. Beaker couldn’t outweigh her sense of self-preservation. <\/span><\/p>\n

They possessed an Enigmatic Energizer, a contraption which made a user feel well-rested, clean, and fed.\u00a0It\u00a0turned out to be quite useful. I could easily replenish myself\u00a0and remain vigilant at all times. I no longer needed to worry about what Circe might try while I was sleeping, eating, or bathing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I studied the machines they had used to torture my father. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This helped to strengthen my resolve, because sometimes Dr. Beaker’s cries of hunger got to me. I was not naturally the type\u00a0who enjoyed the suffering of others, no matter how richly deserved that suffering was. I was no Beaker.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, I fended off the outside world. \u201cNo, Dad — you shouldn\u2019t come visit my new place. I\u2019ve \u2026 I\u2019ve got a fever. You don\u2019t want to catch it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I noted that no matter how hungry Loki got, he simply wouldn’t touch the Cowplant.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t give you the satisfaction,\u201d he snarled up at me, his voice hoarse from days of deprivation and screaming. \u201cYou \u2026 you <\/span>green turd. <\/span><\/i>You\u2019re a big green shit who came right out of your father\u2019s filthy asshole.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So much for a lack of prejudice here<\/span><\/i>, I wrote in my journal. <\/span><\/p>\n

Aiyana, the maid,\u00a0could scarcely fail to notice what was happening in the house, but my generous daily tips bought her silence. Watching the way the Beakers either barked orders at her or followed her around the house criticizing her work gave me the impression that she probably wouldn\u2019t lose much sleep over what she might see.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I listened as Dr. Beaker railed on about all the painful, messy things he was going to do to me once he got out of the pit. His voice was weakened from hunger, but his imagination was as vividly obscene as ever. He was going to cut off my \u201ctiny green balls\u201d and drop them in the Shock Station. And he would call me nothing but \u201cAssbaby,\u201d the vile slur the bigoted like to hurl at alien-born Sims. <\/span><\/p>\n

I bought myself a television, knowing that this would further infuriate Circe. On top of all her other unappealing characteristics, she was one of those tiresome people who believed that not watching television made her superior to those of us who do.<\/p>\n

She wasn’t pleased when she saw it.<\/p>\n

“What’s this doing here? I told you how much I dislike television.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“I think you\u2019ll find it quite useful now, Circe. If I turn it up, it drowns out Dr. Beaker’s screaming.”<\/span><\/p>\n

She had nothing to say to that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I had greatly underestimated how cold this woman was; she could sit in the kitchen and eat while her husband’s cries of hunger emanated from the pit and rang throughout the house.\u00a0<\/span>When she ignored her husband’s sobs and went about her business as if he was simply at work for the day, I began to suspect that she had, by far, been the crueler of the two when my father was here. If she could so easily shut out her husband\u2019s suffering, no wonder she\u2019d thought nothing of subjecting a teenage boy to brutal experiments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Beaker finally succumbed to starvation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I watched from a distance as the Grim Reaper came to claim Dr. Beaker’s soul. <\/span>My grandfather. <\/span><\/i>Did the Reaper know what this man had done to his son? Did he care? <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Loki’s death finally shattered Circe’s icy demeanor. <\/span>She was inconsolable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And with that,\u00a0it was time for the final stage of my plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

I told Circe that perhaps my research had gone a bit too far and so I would do her a small kindness. And then I approached their Resurrect-O-Nomitron, an occult telephone\u00a0one could use to contact the Grim Reaper himself and bargain for the return of the dead. Why was I not surprised they owned such a dreadful thing? I wondered how many times they\u2019d needed it in order to resurrect the subject of an experiment gone horribly wrong. <\/span><\/p>\n

I wondered if they\u2019d ever needed to use it for my father as I picked up the receiver and spoke.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“Hello, Grandfather? I’d like to bring Dr. Loki Beaker back. His loving wife is very lonely without him.”<\/p>\n

“Wait \u2026 <\/span>‘Grandfather’<\/span><\/i>!?\u201d Circe gasped as the penny began to drop.<\/span><\/p>\n

“How much can I offer? Oh \u2026 well, since we don’t have Dr. Beaker’s salary coming in anymore, I’m going to have to be a bit frugal, I\u2019m afraid. How does two\u00a0thousand Simoleons sound?”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Two thousand?\u201d Circe wailed. \u201cNo–that’s not nearly enough! Give him ten thousand! I can afford it!”<\/span><\/p>\n

But I held firm at two thousand. Grandfather was quite offended\u00a0by my paltry offer–as I knew he would be. A red flash of light and a cloud of foul stench signaled his displeasure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I got the full olfactory effect of the no-longer-quite-dead Loki Beaker, I wondered if\u00a0perhaps I had finally gone too far in my quest to avenge my father’s mistreatment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Circe was sickened by the sight of her resurrected husband.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As Circe had finally realized whose son I was, I felt no more need to hide my identity or my true purpose. I gave myself a hairstyle and an outfit she would be far more familiar with, and then I confronted her one last time.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“I never had a normal childhood with my father because your sick experiments robbed him of all emotions and he barely knew how to act like a father! Now that <\/span>you\u2019re<\/span><\/i> living with a zombie, perhaps you’ll understand how I felt all these years!”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

She was unrepentant. “We didn’t <\/span>kill<\/span><\/i> him! He was free to leave at any time, and we never stopped him!”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“You knew perfectly well his family wanted nothing to do with him and he had nowhere to go until Andie Jones convinced him he would be safe with her family. Enjoy your remaining time with your husband, Circe. Think about what happened here if you ever take it into your head to torture another person into madness.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I left the mansion, I saw Andie herself walking by, and I hurried out to catch her. I hadn’t told her I was back in Strangetown because\u00a0I did not want her to know what I was planning, and she appeared understandably surprised\u00a0to see me dressed like my father and standing outside the Beaker mansion. But I had an important gift for her.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“These documents should give you some very interesting information for your next book, Andie,” I told her. \u201cYou were one of the only people in this town who cared enough to help my father. I hope that now these will help you.\u201d The box I gave her held copies of all the files I\u2019d found pertaining to the illegal experiments the Beakers had done on my father and others. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Circe was wandering aimlessly around the property, sobbing and muttering to herself. Andie glanced\u00a0up at Circe, and then she looked at me rather fearfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u00a0happened here, Moon?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s just say that I don\u2019t think the Beakers will have the time or the mental capacity to be conducting any more experiments on innocent young men. That\u2019s all you need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked alarmed and seemed rather cold to me as she departed. It made me wonder.<\/p>\n

Was she judging me?<\/p>\n

Are <\/span>you<\/span><\/i> judging me?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you think I was too cruel? Was what I did worse than what the Beakers did to my father?<\/span><\/p>\n

Am I any less moral than the people who knew for years what was happening to my father and did nothing to help him? Were you perhaps one of those people?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter now, of course; it\u2019s finished. Circe will be spending the rest of her life with a zombie, not at all unlike how I spent my formative years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I can never tell my father what happened; I suspect he\u2019d be horribly upset by the way I stirred up the demons of his past. But as I left the Beaker mansion for the last time, I felt the satisfaction of a job well done.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve\u00a0been playing The Sims pretty much since the series first came out in the early 2000s. There\u00a0was even a time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27,28,26,25,29,24,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":761,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions\/761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}