Hi, I'm back!
After nearly two human years I have successfully completed a round. Summer and wedding season is now officially over (yay!). The only notable thing that happened lately was that I had two alien abductions back to back. The first one was a young woman who just got out of college and when I switched over to the next household, the male in the family was taken away. He already had two kids and his wife was pregnant with their third one. Now they are a family of six living in a three bedroom apartment (their livingroom has turned into a nursery).
I've also pulled some data from the game file so I can make some statistic. And yes, one day I will bore you all with my findings :D

Caroline Flores gave birth to a baby girl. She named her Viviana, which is to suppose to honor her mother Sylvia, cousin/best friend Liv Keller-Flores, and their Hispanic heritage. I spent way too much time in baby name forums searching for the right name, lol.
Caroline moved to Twikkii State University where she found the father of her child in a polyamorous relationship with two other students. No jealously, through. Growing up has completely changed their attraction points, and now they find each other unattractive. They decided to stay friends, and Caroline congratulated Trent on finding new love. Currently, she is only interested in her own studies.

Back at home Nick and Sylvia are very happy about Viviana and hope for more grandchildren to arrive soon. They also hope Caroline gets engaged in college, preferably not to Trent, though.

Esther Warren has grown up to be a bully, apparently. She became enemies with Lotta Keller-Flores who has done absolutely nothing to her. Esther just enjoys being mean to her. And now she literally wants to drink Lotta's life essence and make a zombie out of her. It is a bit scary.

Esther did try to bully Charlotte McCallister as well, but her younger sister Elisabeth was near and interrupted them. Elisabeth ended up chatting with Charlotte, playing with Charlotte, and finally asking her on a date. It was a cute date, and they were NOT struck by lightning, thank you very much. Now, Elisabeth just has to keep her away from Esther, I guess.

Charlotte's older brother Rupert and cousin Tazama visited Tamaza's mothers at newly inhabited island in Twikkii archipelago. They went to beach where Rupert run into an old college dormmate Erik Seiff. He and Erik knew each other in college but Rupert never payed much attention to him. He is very a nice and a very shy sim who does not like attention or drama, so he was not involved with people Rupert liked to hung out with.
They have a stable two bolt chemistry now, through (I think was lower when they both were in college), and they enjoy each other's company. After returning home, Rupert asked him out on a date.
It was a weird experience for Rupert at first. He has been involved with very outgoing sims who don't mind casual romance, and he was very confused why Erik didn't like it. They went to a nightclub as well, a place Erik actually dislikes. At one point the date reached "lame" level but somehow Rupert managed to save it by finally just slowing down and talking and doing some light flirting. They ended up with a dream date and plan to meet again next rotation. No nightclubs though. They are going to a museum.

Rupert's ex-husband Armando moved in an apartment with Orlando Collins, Tazama's ex-fiancee, and Destry Wade, a guy Armando used to date in college and then dumped when Rupert proposed to him. Armando wants to be with both Orlando and Destry, and I wanted ACR to decide it. ACR said "ehh".
Armando wanted to talk to Rupert, so he invited him over, and they had a long conversation. Armando apologized for cheating. They did talk a lot about their interests and wants, and agreed that they were not particularly compatible and married way too fast. Armando admitted that he partly just wanted to have an extended family, and liked the McCallisters as in-laws. He is also very sorry for blowing it up with them. And Rupert admitted that he liked the excitement Armando bought into his life more than Armando himself. They ended up on good terms, added each other to ACR friend zone and parted their ways - Rupert to slowly build a more sustainable relationship with Erik and Armando to enjoy his life and casual dating (and possibly non-monogamy) to the fullest. I do feel good about this ending.

Tazama and Orlando, on the other hand, are confusing and confused themselves. Their popularity aspirations and conflict-avoidant personalities definitely play a part in this. They both wanted to become friends again. Well, no problem. They met, talked, the anger went away, they became friends again.
Tazama has very high relationship, both short and long term with Orlando, and basically wants to get back together.
Orlando wants romance with Tazama, but his long term relationship is now in low 20s. And he was the one who cheated. I can only assume he wants more casual friends-with-benefits situation. No solution was found but they agreed to go on an outing (not a date!) next rotation. I personally hope they will not get back together but they have a free will and I am here to play not to judge.

The night before aging up to an adult Patrik decided to throw a house party. He has a -100 STR with his dad since Conall got a new girlfriend so he wasn't too concerned about his dad finding out about the party. Unfortunately the neighbours complained about the noise and the cops came to shut the party down. His fellow teens all moped out of the house with their heads lowered as their fun was ruined. The next night Conall threw his youngest son a birthday party and invited all his children. Catrina initially seemed hesitant about joining in on the smustle, but after she realized it was so easy her dad could do it, she figured that smustling with her brothers wouldn't be the worse thing in the world. Patrik plans on moving out first thing next round. He's not sure where, but anywhere has to be better than living at home. Conall on the other hand, while sad that Patrik wants to move out so soon, is looking forward to continuing his relationship with Leah without opposition from his family. Leah has a want to marry Conall, but so far he doesn't feel the same way (which is interesting, considering he's a family sim).

Fannie Schmeller's husband (and Bidet's father ), Corey, is having affairs!

A neighbour with a telescope noted this encounter on the porch, whilst his wife and daughter slept:


Heidi Tidy gossiped to various people that he checked in to one of the motel rooms, and that an unidentified female NPC joined him in his room later.


Oh the drama!

Inexplicable tragedy was just averted in Centuryville.

Annabell Brown got up in the middle of the night to give birth. Her hygiene and hunger bars were both slightly yellow; all others were green. She gave birth to a little girl, named her, then set her down and grabbed her throat as Grim's icon appeared in her queue! She went through the whole sickness and death animation before Grim actually faded into the room, without a single note of ominous music, as her portrait vanished. I was clicking on Grim frantically as her husband Anton, until I finally got the "Plead for Loved One" option after Grim had already checked his list and Annabell's teen son had come in and picked up the baby. Anton chose the correct hand and she returned, now with all of her motives slightly under half. Which is reasonable after being saved from death's door.

Now, this is an historical hood; but I have not installed any mother-infant mortality mods. The game's fully patched, so the early glitch that had pregnant ladies dropping like flies -- which is only a rumor to me -- should not be in play. Moreover, another mother in town gave birth to twins recently with almost all of her motives orange -- I had to micromanage like heck to keep her alive. But there was no sign or shadow of Grim there.

I didn't want Annabell to die (obviously, or I wouldn't have had Anton try to plead), but I was resolved to allow it, because the situation would have been period-appropriate and had potential to change the future of the household in a number of interesting ways. Annabell is a CAS widow who was raising her child Howell and running a boarding house when the game started. Anton is a former boarder, and the household presently consists of a female boarder waiting for her fiance to graduate, teen Howell, Anton, Annabell, Meghan, and two dogs. Leaving Anton to raise his daughter with his stepson, who is a Knowledge sim and college-bound, assisted by the boarder and any new ones who move in would have created conflicts and difficulties and dilemmas.

But I didn't sign up for this glitch and it worries me, as does the total silence of Grim. The air conditioning in that room is a little loud, so I can't hear more subtle sound effects, but I'd heard her yell with the start of labor just fine. Also, I just realized that I had testingcheats enabled, which I don't normally, but I'd had a recent graduate move into a furnished apartment right before playing this household, and I didn't get a single error message. Which ought to mean that the game was working properly.

Just finished setting up my new uberhood where I gave them makeovers and fixed some of their info like ltws and secondary aspiration

197 households
Around 500 playables

This include Downtownies, Bluewater Village Townies and Social class townies which i moved in and gave relationship and careers to. The uni premades was quickly played through and lives in a separate subhoods.i just call it Uni-town

But a 1/3 or 1/4 of them are Single sims and i speed play most of them. Story progression mod has tempted me, but I like using mods like insim and simblender to speed households instead.. Going to tackle the single households first to reduce the households

I've just started a new round.
It is now autumn and my plans for this season is to send my newly weds on honeymoons and make groups so I can pretend I've ts4:s Get together installed.
First I spent some time on college (so I can move in my teens from last round) and when I switched back to my main 'hood, I picked a household that turned out to have the sim I thought I was going to have to search for: the librarian!
A little bit of context: as you might know, when sims write a book, the game will only generate one copy of that book. A while ago I had this idea that I should put all of those books in a library so any sim can read the books and not just the household that has the book. But that requires a sim owned community lot to work.
This sim (that I found) has enough money to buy the local library, is interested in literature AND is an author of seven books. She is perfect
(She is also an elder now, which is even better!)

It just feels like this round is going to be smooth sailing from here on out and not like the stressful, seemingly never ending summer I just played through... (It took two human years, dear fellow simmer.)

Here's a picture of my librarian! I don't have any of her as an elder yet, the latest picture I have is at her birthday party, before she turned.
I love this game so much sometimes

Sidney Gardner has clearly been scared by his twin sister's experience getting expelled from university.

Last semester they both wanted to skip class all the time, and never wanted to do any work - and they both failed. Sidney went on academic probation, but Suzanne was already on academic probation and so got expelled (my first time that has happened).

This semester, Sidney kept wanting to skip class. Then he'd stop and worry while thinking about Suzanne and her memory of getting expelled, and then next time his wants panel re-rolled "stay home from class" would disappear. So he did actually go to class. He also got engaged to his girlfriend, and when I played her household he was spotted doing some study at one point. And then he went to his final exam in a good mood and managed to pass, so he's off academic probation again and still going. We will have to see whether the fear lasts long enough to get him his degree.

I turn my back on the retirement community for one moment, and this happens (just prior to this, they were all fighting):





And that was the end of Fritz Frisbee. Phoenix Strange's grave survives!

For a moment there I thought that the butler saw the Grim Reaper and called the police.

Your Grim Reaper looks like he's spreading himself too thin lol. Too much work?

Just had a birthday party to remember!

In Centuryville, I had two kids who brought kids home from school every day, and who were constantly coming home with everyone else: Mary Beth and Wilbur. Since my retro hood has Hat's age mod, they had lots of time to make friends with the other kids in the hood. As simmers will, I started planning their wedding early on, as they came home with each other more than anyone else. Mary Beth was entirely cut out to be a Queen Bee, so she was going to grow up to be Popularity; and I considered it for Wilbur (his parents are both Popularity, and he's destined to work in and ultimately inherit his father's Billiard Bar), but he only has three social points so when the time came I picked Fortune for him, instead. The chemistry's almost as good.

So, Mary Beth invited all her friends, i.e., half the town, to her birthday party and duly grew up to be a Popularity teen with turn-ons for Fatness (Wilbur is fat) and Formalwear, and a turn-off for Make-up. (Which hardly any respectable women, and no straight men, are using in 1908, the year we're up to.) She ate her cake and the guests ate up all the bass with squash her grandmother had made for the party; Eugenia Argent-Spoon, scion of the wealthiest family in town, started playing Mary Beth's violin in the living room; I had Mary Beth check Wilbur out to set her gender preference; and the party was already at Not Bad, so once I had her introduce the couple of people who had somehow avoided knowing each other (including Wilbur and Eugenia; he somehow became friends with her little sister, but not her) I left them to it. With this age mod there is absolutely no need to rush teens into dating.

Suddenly, Milton -- a brand-new Family sim who had made friends with Mary Beth late and apparently in self-defense (he's high Nice and seemed visibly scared of her and her head-hurling, teasing, in-your-face, yes I'm visiting and there's nothing you can do about it brand of sociality) walked up to her where she was alternating telling jokes with Wilbur and her best girl friend Lettie, and flirted with her! You could have knocked me over with a feather! She accepted the flirt; they then held hands and fell in love on the spot. Lettie and Milton then started vying for her attention (raising the question, is Lettie -- who is only friends with her sisters and Mary Beth -- jealous of Mary Beth, about Milton, or of Milton, about Mary Beth? Hmmm...), leaving Wilbur standing there enjoying Eugenia's prowess on the violin. I looked elsewhere for a moment, and when I looked back, Eugenia had put the violin down and Wilbur had gathered up all his social points to flirt with her!

Well, that's me told. It's what I get for making plans.

Eugenia is Fortune herself, and a tempting prospect for another Fortune sim, especially one who's not keen on the "personal interaction" part of getting rich. Wilbur actually tried to advance to romantic hugging right before the party wrapped up, and the timer ran down as she was shoving him away and wagging her finger at him, so possibly the course of true love may not run smooth. Wilbur also is not destined for college and Eugenia is, so it may come to nothing in the long run.

This is completely vanilla flirting behavior, by the way, no ACR in my games. Wilbur had been straight for about five minutes at that point, because he was the first of their friend group to grow up and there were no teens at his birthday party to set his sexuality, so his social points don't seem to be holding him back at all.

Pictured left to right:

• Molly, Isabella Monty
• Isabella, Bianca
• Bianca, Benedick, Beatrice, Isabella
• Benedick, Bianca, Antonio, Beatrice
  Also featuring Grim, Hula Zombies, and Random Child

Playing my first time in Veronaville, eventually I'll make a dedicated thread in the groups but for now I'll give a brief recap of how we got to this point. Patrizio died, he did not achieve his lifetime wish of 'whatever it was that I gave him'. I completely rebuilt the entire Monty Ranch, and he was buried in the extended graveyard. Isabella sold everything and his ghost is still pissed at specifically their bed being sold. She also got a dog named Molly, whomst I hate for no reason whatsoever other than she's not Crab the dog. After Romeo and Mercutio went off to college, she convinced her son Antonio to move-in with his children. It worked out really well... anyway I'm trying to invite the headmaster- but my phone hacks are glitched. I had Isabella make a baked alaska for the first time after randomly checking her bio, thinking that the headmaster would still appear, but instead it's Bianca who shows up. I thought it was a perfect opportunity as I hadn't had the family get together yet, so I brought in Bianca and Beatrice's friend she had brought home from school and was playing with outside (it's still fall at this point, I don't play with winter, that's why they're in outside clothes). I thought it was cute that Bianca decided to sit next to her mother, so I snapped a pic of her burping. I was not at all expecting for what had happened next.
Isabella died of old age at the end of my second week of playing in Veronaville. That marks the last of her generation to die in this save, following Patrizio and Consort. She's the only one to have died with gold aspiration, though she still did not complete her lifetime wish of 'whatever it was that I gave her'. Antonio has inherited the Monty Ranch.
P.S. I find it hilarious that it looks like Benedick immediately went up to the Hula Zombie to check her out. Also that Antonio just continued cleaning up dishes.

I had another death-in-childbirth foiled by the husband pleading in Centuryville. I'm going to have to look through my mods. It took me several years to desultorily build this hood, and I might at some point during that have added a death-in-childbirth mod and then forgotten it. If I did, I need to know the rules!

Millie and MJ Climber are both Romance with secondaries, Family for her and Fortune for him. She's an Argent-Spoon (richest family in town, own the department store, Caveat Emptorium) and he's a Climber (ambitious Mom wants 5 level-10 businesses and to join what passes in town as the social elite). They've both decided that they believe in Free Love and have drunk anti-jealousy potions that I then made static, and they have a spare room with a double bed so they don't have to piss off each other's families by using the bed upstairs of the town's only full date venue too often. MJ has assumed ownership of his mom's second business venture, Seaside Books, and I think we've finally got it to the point that it can actually be profitable, though there may still be some surprises lurking. I had some book deco in there that absolutely refused to be sold for anything but $0 but cost various amounts to restock, so that's gone. And the bookcase that sells for $45 and can only be restocked for full price is history (that almost has to be a problem with the CC bookcase; every other time I've set a bookcase for sale sims could only buy Maxis novels from it).

Millie was helping MJ with it and showing a considerable gift for sales while he struggled with the register, but after such a difficult birth she's going to have to take it easy for awhile. Possibly quite a long while. I'm still working out how to treat the long-term effects of nearly dying in childbirth. Maybe they can never have another? Not a problem for two Romance sims, but what if it happens to a Family mother? I may have to get her to invite her sole female dormie friend from college to move in as live-in childcare/inevitable woohoo buddy. What baby Walter will think of all this, nobody knows.

After breakfast on Saturday, Grace Jarvie sat with her friend from next door Jemma Jeffrey on the sofa and watched television. She wanted to buy some new underwear, so, accompanied by Jemma and her brother George, she took a taxi to the Comandgo Emporium where she bought a Phat Baby white vest and briefs by PhantasyGurl. They watched TV and socialised with the other shoppers, but George wanted to eat out so they ordered another taxi.

They went to the One-Twenty-Five Café, where the three of them enjoyed both the atmosphere and the food.

When they got home, George 'phoned Miles Strong, a fairly new acquaintance, and invited him round. Miles brought Margaret Steedman with him. Gregg 'phoned Damien Allerton, another teenage boy that he knows. Grace took a shower in the back garden, after which she changed into her new undies (which provide a lot more coverage than her old ones). As Gregg continued to talk on the 'phone, Grace fried herself some supper. George had checked Jemma out, but there was no real spark of attraction. So, very tentatively he kissed his friend Miles, whom he knew was gay. He was surprised how good it felt. Gregg too noticed this good-looking boy that his son was befriending. He kissed Miles on the cheek and Miles seemed more than happy wih that. George and Miles renewed their kissing and flirting. George's only previous romantic relationship was Veri Short, one of his dad's girlfriends -- an adult woman who lives in the Via Veronaville. George and Miles kept kissing until, with mutual crushes on each other, they smooched. Then George invited Miles to stay for a sleepover, a proposal that Miles was very glad to accept. Meanwhile outside in the garden, Grace was inviting Jemma to sleepover too. Jemma accepted and then gave a shocked gasp. She had just spotted Miles facing her -- completely naked as he finished his shower. (There is an outdoor shower at the back of the house.) Jemma couldn't help noticing that, in addition to being naked, Miles was also drop-dead gorgeous!

Around five o'clock, very tired after such an eventful day, George went to bed in his single bed to get some much-needed shut-eye before the evening meal. Well-rested after a couple of hours in bed, George got up again at about half past seven to make macaroni and cheese for the evening meal, only to find the fridge almost empty. So he ordered a taxi to take him to the Fresh Rush Grocery to buy provisions -- even though the shop is only just across the road from their house.

Meanwhile Gregg was in the love tub in the back garden with some of the visitors. When one of them got out, Gregg invited Miles to join them. Before long Gregg and Miles were cuddling. Then just as George was getting into his taxi, Gregg kissed Miles. Gregg loves his son George, but not to the extent that he'd pass up the chance of having an affair with his son's gorgeous new boyfriend!

George wasted little time at the shop. He quickly ordered the food he needed, and, chatting only briefly with the other shoppers, he ordered a taxi back home.

Back home, George put the food he'd bought into the fridge. Then to his dismay he found he couldn't cook it, because there was already some unmade spaghetti lying on the only counter available for food preparation. So George put the ingredients for the macaroni on the table, and started to prepare the spaghetti. It was only enough for one. When he finished eating, he had to use the toilet, but by now Gregg was feeling hungry, so he prepared and cooked the mac and cheese that George had started. At the ensuing meal Miles and Gregg talked shamelessly about how much they were looking forward to having woohoo with each other, even though George was sitting at the table with them.

After supper everyone finally went to bed: Grace in her own bed sharing it with her friend Jemma Jeffrey from next door. (Grace isn't in love with Jemma, but with Jemma's brother Jolyon.) Still at an early stage in their relationship, in Gregg's bed, George and Miles kept chastely each to their own side of the bed. Gregg contended himself with sleeping alone in George's single bed, but he knows he's not had a bad day, and he's confident he'll soon be enjoying woohoo with George's new boyfriend. Gregg isn't fussy about the gender of his lovers!

.... Such is life in the Grand Duchy of Veronaville since I put in the 'No jealousy at all' mod that Andrew and Julian wanted!

I am shocked!


I haven't heard the name Jolyon since John Galsworthy! I love it, reminds me of Kenneth More.

What a horrible father! Stealing his son's boyfriend!

I made a new map for my sims (which I have uploaded last week or so) and am busy building a number of new lots.

There are a number of community lots I want, but of course it has to be done my way

And I thought I would like some new houses too, and am trying to use the mansard roofs and other nice stuff that came with AL and M&G - of course, making sure they have enough bathrooms :D

I've had computer troubles and had to cope without playing Sims for a week! Apparently my graphics card is so ancient that there's not a single Linux distribution that still supports the drivers... but Windows 10 is still willing to run Sims 2 using onboard graphics, while Linux won't even launch the game. So my standard of living has somewhat deteriorated and I'm reluctant to play my large, heavily decorated, highly populated hoods in case of frustration and crashing. That led me to start a new hood, a Strangetown with a grimy, faded, shabby theme, a chance to use all grungy that CC I've collected from Psychosim, Pixelhate and old GoS threads. And of course, although I was desperate to just PLAY the game after being deprived, here I am instead curating a new themed downloads folder. So far, though, Chloe Curious formed an immediate want to flirt with the matchmaker, Ripp got struck by lightning, Tank gatecrashed the Smiths' party and made a beeline for the chess set, and Circe turned down one flirt from Vidcund and then changed her mind and started an affair.

Oasis Valley had the first wedding of generation 2 (and also the first wedding in quite a long time - George and Laura married when Laura was pregnant, and their daughter Leila is now a teenager). This time, Mark and Wilhemina married in his back garden. It is still early spring, so it was a little cold, but with no rain and plenty of sunshine they had a nice ceremony, which almost all of their friends and relatives managed to watch - apart from Mina's brothers (playing red hands in the house for some reason) and her father (no idea where he was).

Mark's twin sister Matilda is also hopefully getting married soon - she's been wanting to marry her boyfriend Ernest for some time, but he's had other things to think about. But they went out on a date to the new restaurant in town and suddenly he started imagining weddings - so probably they'll have a repeat visit to the restaurant with a ring next time I play him.

I have one other "love is in the air" story for now: Eric and Adelaide were a couple as teenagers, but she went to university first and so they broke off their relationship while apart. Eric has now moved to university as well, and as soon as he arrived he wanted to see Adelaide. He invited her round, greeted her, and she instantly and autonomously flirted with him, which put them both back in love and (as it turned out) both wanting to go steady, which they promptly did.

I've been building on my christmas themed vacation 'hood! It feels like I'm getting somewhere, but it is taking a really long time (as some of you might know). I also did some "research" by sending two of my sims on a mountain trip. I've never actually visited the secret lot where Bigfoot lives and I thought it was time to do that now, so I can build one for the christmas 'hood. And I brought Bigfoot with me home! I don't play a lot on supernatural beings in sims, I usually cure vampirism as soon as they've been bitten and all of my three aliens are babies/toddlers. (Some of my testing sims were zombies, which was fun until I discovered that they can't be cured from that. I don't know how they mysteriously managed to trap themselves in the doorless room with a fireplace. When I discovered it later there was only ashes and urns left.)
Despite the broke-the-dollhouse-incident, Bigfoot seems to be a friendly being. He likes to eat and bring home presents (Well, I've a "new" kitchen now, a bit unnecessary considering I just renovated that room.)
His name is Jay

I've been playing Zoo Tycoon 2 lately and I wish I could merge the two games together. I want to take my sims to the zoo.
(And to the amusement park, but that seems far more possible. Thanks modders! But that will be a project for another day.)