why did i decide my next crafting project was gonna be a kit for klimt's the kiss. why did i do this to myself. bitch u are PINING.

Which aspirations do you enjoy playing most and least?

cant blv i forgot about this gr8 ask! let me go all out and do a full ranking

8. family🍼: well u all saw that coming. in 20+ generations of Unions i’ve had a family heir exactly one time and he had a fully autonomous, lifelong affair with his stepmother. i’ve never had a family sim who was, not even gonna say ‘good’, literally just a decent parent, so i’ve truly gotten shit out of this aspiration. for one shining moment it looked like Wyatt was gonna be the one to break the curse but i’m not even gonna acknowledge him now bc he is dead to me

7. popularity☎️: a good idea that was executed in the lamest way possible. from the boring regular wants, to the indescribable lifetime ones, to the fact it’s impossible to play it successfully without making the sim a pathological phone-glued freak, popularity is a sad waste of potential. if they had combined it with the scrapped power aspiration it could actually have some bite and be interesting instead of endless friend-making for friend-making’s sake. its one and only redeeming factor: mean popularity sims 

6. pleasure🌆: the most ~high concept aspiration is also the most hit or miss one, and on sims without the personality to pull it off it can be the blandest one. on top of getting a meh sim, the aspiration points its wishes grant are crumbs, so a lot of times it feels half-baked and makes a better secondary than primary. all that said some of my favorite sims ever have been pleasure, so with the rare right sim none of the above really matters, especially if they roll one of the iconic date ltws 

5. grilled cheese🧀: a cute joke that went way too far but damn if finishing the 200 sandwiches ltw isn’t one of the most fulfilling moments in the entire game

4. grow up🎠: easy, straightforward and relateable as hell. what’s not to like

3. knowledge👽: knowledge is a weird case bc at first glance it looks like it should be chilling at the bottom of the barrel, yet it somehow almost always makes for good gameplay. it’s prob a trifecta of a) being pretty ‘open’ as far as characterization goes, b) a few cool premades making it interesting by association and c) having both fun wants (aliens/ghosts/grim reaper) + high paying careers with some of the best rewards. it’s very well-rounded overall, its only real drawback being that without a more extroverted secondary/living with other sims with such an asp, it gets really boring, really fast. like a house full of knowledge sims a la Curious bros is my literal nightmare. not even alien babies could save that lot

2. romance🔥: the best thing about the romance aspiration is what ultimately dooms it to second place: it was designed to be the most fun one, which it def is, and like most fun things, it’s reaaally hard to keep it up. this has mostly to do with how child-centric the game is, as in there’s simply not enough to do with a single-sim household after a certain point, and i really don’t like forcing romance sims to settle down against their will. ofc there are some exceptions like Gunther rolling the want to get engaged to Brit Brit, but these are so rare, world-shattering, one-in-a-million moments that they might as well be a glitch. to play the typical romance sim in a legacy context without feeling like u’re torturing them or having them cheat, u eventually have to water them down with a family-secondary icecube. so basically the romance aspiration suffers from being in a game that’s not designed to support it long-term, and while it is the funnest one, it falls short of being the total package, unlike……

1. fortune💸: i started answering this ask expecting a grand dilemma bw romance and fortune for the top spot, but it turns out that was just some residual effect of the contentious Gunther/Jojo vote and fortune is hands down my favorite aspiration. like now that i’ve carefully pondered it to a truly embarrassing degree, it’s not even close. on top of being the aspiration most commonly found in my premade hall of fame [Consort, Jessica P. (who btw is canon gay, wake up people), Dina, Dirk, Malcolm L, Gvaudoin, Frances J et al] and ofc, the aspiration of the queen of my heart, Vicky Union, fortune gives me everything i want gameplay-wise: it’s perfect for legacies without forcing u to have copious amounts of children like family and perfect for the mean sims i always get without requiring they be socially competent like romance. the sims are relatively easy to keep happy without being boring + the wants have a good asp points output+ there’s doable ltws and 2 of the most challenging ones in the entire game. finally it’s literally the only aspiration that can make sense with all the other ones both as secondaries AND as romantic pairings, i mean go ahead and try it, shit’s unreal. so at the end of the day fortune wins out over romance bc it’s more versatile and works better in the long haul, which is ~what legacies are all about~ also u kno. u never forget ur first love