Custom hood progressing. One day, it will be done

I've had quite a lot happen in the short marriage of Bobby Broke and Desdemona Capp. Really, this is just my way of putting things right when I think my Sims have made some bad choices in their relationships, although I always follow their wants--I just sometimes give them a nudge in the direction I want them to go.

Bobby and Desdemona were an item in college, which was when Bobby promised he'd marry Desdemona after they graduated. But they lost that spark for each other when they changed their aspirations junior year (both started as Pleasure, but Bobby changed to Knowledge and Desdemona changed to Fortune). Bobby graduated a year ahead of Desdemona, moved in with his brother Beau, and found that sparks really were flying with his next-door neighbor, Lucy Burb. Still, he felt like he had to keep his promise, and he quickly married Desdemona after she graduated. She just as quickly got pregnant. But it wasn't working--Bobby was head over heels for Lucy, and she had fallen for him too. Desdemona was also unhappy in the marriage. She wanted to pursue a career in show business, which was tough to do stuck in a trailer in Pleasantview with a young baby. One night, she and Bobby had a long talk and decided to split up. Bobby would keep custody of little Betty. It was basically a "starter marriage."

Roxie Sharpe and Jonah Powers have been very successful in their careers (she's a Slacker, he's in Music) and have upgraded to a roomy townhouse downtown. They each have their own bedroom for their extracurricular activities, but that leaves them three more rooms to rent. I decided their house would be a good place for my young Sims who want to live in the city, mostly Romance and Pleasure Sims. I've moved in Desdemona, Bottom Summerdream (who is an aspiring artist), and Miranda Capp, who has a windowless basement room because she is a vampire now. On their first day, Bottom started flirting with Jonah. She went to work and brought home Johnny Smith, and those two headed for the hot tub. Miranda had her lover Mickey Dosser over. Once Bottom wandered upstairs to get something to eat, Miranda started flirting heavily with Johnny. Really, Johnny, shame on you! You have a wife and two boys waiting at home. This may not all be quite Desdemona's scene, but she sees it as a step to breaking into show business, and she also has the want to marry someone wealthy, so she may not stay there long. I think this house is going to be fun to play and convenient, since I won't have to play all my single Sims separately.

Back in Pleasantview, I happen to know that both Bobby and Lucy have the want to get engaged to each other, but I think they are going to have a proper wedding. Also, Alexander has learned that Lucy has chosen someone else and is in quite a huff about it. She could have become a Goth! Sorry, Alexander, Lucy marries for love, not for money or to please her mother. Maybe I should set up a meeting between Alexander and Desdemona.

I've had lots of stuff to playtest, so Orchard Isle has been on hold for a while. Instead, I've tested lightly modded objects and custom secret vacationlots in dummy hoods and when I've been satisfied that things are working okay I've played Unnamed Area and let the families there (mainly the Cookes and the Picasos) test out the aesthetic choices. Of course I can't spend that much time with them without getting caught up in their lives, so I've ended up playing more with them than I had ever planned to. Julien Cooke runs his own restaurant, as I think I've mentioned before, and his daughter Madeleine helped out until she left for uni. Now he is gonna need an employee, but is still trying to make up his mind on who to hire. His wife Della was an arts and crafts hobby instructor, so she's helped out testing a "professional easel" - she has a bit more fun painting, earns more per painting and finishes the paintings faster. Since I learned about transparent paintings, she now paints normal paintings on her normal easel, then paints different overlays on the professional easel. Sims come to her and Julien's home business to buy them and usually end up buying a plate of something Julien cooked as well. They are also busy teaching Puffy the mischievous dog and raising their youngest daughter Julienne, who is still a school child.

The Picasos are both elders and are now rolling wants to retire. They spend most of their time cuddling eachother and hanging out with their townie friends and the Cookes. Apart from Jessica's locked want of a mountain vacation (which there never seems to be the right time for), they mostly want more friends, so I greet all the walkbys and let them work it out themselves.

The younger generation are busy getting educated and figuring out thier love lives. Jesper Picaso is a knowledge sim and studies biology. He got engaged to a cheerleader called Pandora McTavish, but I think it looks like he's getting cold feet. Maybe her family sim wants get a bit too intense for him? She comes up to flirt with him or hug him, and he just drops it from his queue and tells a joke to his housemate Jared Starchild instead, leaving her standing there looking lost. Jared Starchild himself seems perfectly happy with his own fiancée, Eiluned TreSellock. Those two are a bit of a circus and amuse me constantly, and they are very sweet to eachother.

The Cooke twins, Madeleine and Suzette, split up into two households early on because they naturally fell in with very different crowds. Madeleine is a fortune sim (at least her aspiration icon says so, but she'd have anyone fooled) who studies psychology because she said she wanted it, but her long term goal is to be a celebrity chef like her dad and take over the family business. She lives with Sam Thomas, Ty Bubbler and Eric Swain and is now engaged to Eric. Her main hobbies are feeding everyone yummy things and having water balloon fights. Her household parties in a relaxed, informal and laid back way and gets the occasional outbreak of skilling frenzy which has taken them through each term without problems.

Suzette Cooke joined the Tri-Var sorority and moved in with Heather Huffington, Brittany Upsnott and Tiffany Samson, where there is a butler to look after everyone. She is a popularity sim who wants to be a mayor and studies political science and she takes socialising veeery seriously. So seriously she misses exams and was on academic probation for a while. For a long time she didn't roll any romantic wants, then she met a fellow political science student called Noël Twolancet and went from 0 to 100 with him in no time. They got engaged the same day they met and somehow got pregnant even if I had them both on birth control. They are well meaning but somewhat absent minded parents to their toddler son, but what little Nouvelet can't get from his parents he gets from the rest of the household. They all spoil him rotten, from the butler to Brittany Upsnott's romance sim boyfriend.

I'm playing an Uberhood, I started in Strangetown with the Curious brothers. Pascal had a boy who I named Tycho (of course) and he's currently a toddler in my game. I then sent Vidcund up to get abducted and he's currently pregnant but doesn't know yet. Lazlo...is Lazlo, nothing much happened with him but he has been a lot of help with taking care of Tycho. I had Pascal start a romance with Nervous, though it'll take a while before they're official, unless they decide to do so themselves.

I moved onto the Specter household, nothing much to say, Olive died leaving her belongings to Ophelia. Though I have decided Ophelia won't marry Johnny and instead I'll have her keep looking for love.

With the Beakers, Circe got promoted, Loki and Circe autonomously tried for baby and are now pregnant, and Nervous is trying to become BFFs with Pascal. Told you it'll be a while before they get together! They at least have crushes on each other.

Then the Smith family, Poll Tech and Jenny tried for baby since she wanted to have another child and are now pregnant. Johnny became an adult and joined the Political career. Funnily both Johnny and Jenny's second aspiration was Grilled Cheese lol. Johnny has two bolts with Erin Beaker, so he'll probably get with her unless she gets married or he finds his three bolter. Though that's unlikely.

Finally, the Grunt household, Tank joined the Military career and aged up to an Adult, both Tank and General Buzz's second aspirations were Fortune. Tank wouldn't stop teasing Ripp and now don't have the greatest relationship, but that was expected honestly. Not a lot else happened with that family. Once Jill and Buck age up, if they have decent chemistry, I'll probably have them get together.

That's all I got through this time, I'm going to go though them again for the first round since that was just the set-up round. Afterwards I'll pick a different neighborhood to play.

I was in Pleasantview once again and edited the wall coverings on the pillars at the enterance points to both of the lots to look more realistic for an early American colonial settlement in the 17th century.

I tried to do in CAS what I do in order to make Sims in the Sims 3.
I set every slider to an extreme end, then slide around just a little bit until it doesn't look overly grotesque anymore. It... didn't work so well? Here's images of the Sims I started with, when I set all the sliders to max (with a mod to unlock the Bodyshop ones in-game), and after adjusting.

Look like it worked fine to me!

@Justpetro It looks like you're doing like me only I'm likely posting a virgin town ready for building with unwanted vegetation removed ready for downloaders to decorate themselves and they will add their own lots and do their own building as I'm going to do in my own playthough of that town.

Here's what's happening in Pleasantview:
Beatrice and Hal's first child was born, a girl named Anna, and she immediately got pregnant again. So she was put on birth control. Ariel is staying in the extra room after graduating but will probably have to move out soon to make room for all these children.

John Burb finally passed away from his long illness. Perhaps it was the shock of actually seeing Jennifer and Romeo together that did him in. Lucy moved back home to help out. She will likely inherit the house now as Jennifer has other plans.

Here's what's happening in Veronaville:
Tybalt had a daughter named Jacintha and took up advocating for the rights of half-alien children. Interestingly, all the babies born from alien abduction have been girls, although the majority of babies born in game have been boys overall.

Romeo had a girl over and was making out with her when Jennifer called with the news about John. He immediately noped that girl out of there, invited Jennifer over, and proposed. It may seem ghoulish, but he's been waiting a very long time for her to be free. They were married in the Monty ranch. Jennifer and Antonio's wife, Sharon, immediately started squabbling, presumably over who was the actual mistress of the house. Sharon has one son already and another baby on the way, while Jennifer is 100% unlikely to have any more kids, so Sharon seems to have the advantage there.

Here's what's happening in Strangetown:
Loki was performing experiments on his new test subject, Edwin Sharpe, siphoning off his skills and such, when he accidentally set Edwin on fire. He hid the body in the basement. He also lost all of their money in another experiment gone wrong. He's got the "mad" part of Mad Scientist down pat. Edwin is now haunting him, and I think he feels some remorse for his evil deeds.

Lola's son was born. She didn't name him after his father, Ajay, but instead named him after her love (and her sister's live-in boyfriend), Mickey. Jenny is pretty happy to have another baby to take care of. A birthday party was thrown the next day. Ajay wasn't invited (although his girlfriend Kristen was), but he showed up anyway and spent most of the time trying to poke Lola while she ignored him.

Cleo and Beau Broke also had a son named Baz. Cleo visits the Curious house every chance she gets. I think she'd rather be living there, if there were room.

For everyone else, it was life as usual.

It finally happened -- I forgot rolling the pacifier and got three identic Sims. First I thought about mixing the parents genes in a subhood and Sim Surgery their clones faces onto the two copies (had 1+2 children, and the twins look like the onlychild), but I'm starting to think that this isn't anything a little fire won't fix... Would be the first ever actual tragedy in my game, too.

Fire is extreme. With Alt Sim Surgery the source sim doesn't have to be from the same neighborhood, so you don't have to have identical strangers out there running around a subhood. If it were me, I'd just give them different hairstyles.

The polycule of Tessa Ramirez, Meadow Thayer Ramirez, and Orlando Bertino is off and running. Tessa and Orlando made up about the time Meadow developed a crush on him (obviously she wasn't as comfortable with the idea as Tessa and Orlando were, plus she's shy) and Tessa shocked me by rolling a "have baby" want after meeting Chester's sprog Cyrus when Meadow didn't! All three were technically at a partner count of two, but I'd seen Tessa get her second partner and, though it was a man, it was all oral, and Orlando's partners were both male. (The men flock to him. He wears a skirt and a button down and his face is fairly feminine - he radiates "twink" energy, even to me.)

The casual woohoo CC still won't do in most of my hoods, but they do have their storytelling uses. I decided that Tessa wanted Orlando to be her baby's father and wasn't on birth control, but Orlando didn't want to muck up her first time. So he asked Denise out and they went to a bar and grill called El Flagrente, had dinner, and vanished into a tent. Their afterglow was interrupted by a townie Denise had mercy-dated (he's always using the mattresses in the background and then he complains about his low aspiration. I have a mod that lets townies change aspiration levels and it isn't always kind to Knowledge sims, who can't get skill points; and casual woohoo was clearly not doing it for him. So Denise dated him till he was safe from despair.), but it took long enough to get out of the tent that nobody got slapped. I let them free range the rest of the evening and they made free use of the lot's x-rated devices, but in such combination that Orlando's woohoo count didn't go up - the shower's custom memories don't count for that. Denise was completely insatiable. I think she hears Grim coming. Anyhow, he went home, where Tessa still had a want for three different partners, and Orlando rolled a new one. Tessa influenced him to flirt with Meadow, they fell in love, and then - with Meadow's full consent - went upstairs and made a baby while Meadow read a romance novel.

So that's where that sits, and where it may sit for awhile. Now that my crashing problem is solved (thought I had the 4gb patch; didn't) I'm debating about whether to return to Widespot once the Landgraab alien sprogs grow to toddler (I want mostly alien features but with brows!). That's the next household. I'll see how I feel in the moment. It seems like a long time since I played Widespot.

I went into Arbor Valley when I loaded my game up to get more done on my neighborhood playthough for a demo of the town to be ready for uploading as I want to show it in action as a town in play.I've done some minor edits like adding another coat hook Charity clothing bin.

I keep getting spammed about my kid sim's D grade cos she got adopted on a Friday with a C, and then missed school cos the social worker arrived at 10 am - making the kid miss school.
It never occurred to me that I should send a newly adopted child to school the moment they stepped on my house.
The notice kept on going over the weekend and I'm like,, WHAT DO YOU WANT GAME? DO YOU HAVE WEEKEND CLASSES?

Sara Stewart has lately been rather cool to her older husband Andy-she's heard all kinds of nasty gossip about him and how it was so curious that his ex-wife and her husband disappeared without a trace.
She's wondering if she should find out what really happened..and thus she's going to go on a search for some clues to their disappearance. She's heard that some people saw Andy at the Columbarium shortly before their disappearance..and she's going to find out if there's anything there to see.
She's been growing more and more afraid of him lately-and she found out through a friend of hers that he's very wealthy-she wonders why he never mentioned that little fact to her.
She hopes she lives through her investigation, and keeps the children safe. She loves them dearly and would like nothing better than to solve this one very disturbing mystery for them.

I was prepping a world for a BACC, building a lot and shrinking it, making two Sims. Went to build the second house, built the shell, saved, went back out... and the lot I placed and built was gone. Same with the second Sim I had just made...

I've been playing in Tinsel Town, and have been at Clay Power's house-he and his wife have one child, Gina-they all went out to celebrate Clay and Shelley's changing jobs-they'd gotten tired of the same old thing, and this cheered them up (they had the day off, of course). During their stay at the Amusement park, Clay and Shelley went into the photobooth-took some pictures and had a quickie in it.
They all came home happy and tired.
Later, I found out that Shelley was pregnant again-obviously from their tryst in said photobooth..and because I'd taken out a pregnancy mod, she was in a normal state of pregnancy-due in 3 days.
It's been so long since I've had a normal timed pregnancy in the game that I had to look up how long it takes !
Anyhow, Gina grew up to be a teen, and I'm hoping she won't be very jealous of her new sibling when it arrives.

Word has gotten out that Alexander Goth is an eligible bachelor who is also quite wealthy, but Alexander himself is being very particular with his dates. Both Ariel and Desdemona Capp (who both aspire to marry someone wealthy) have thrown their hats at him, with only lukewarm results. Meanwhile, Achilles Goth has moved home--just as wealthy, just as single, but with no desires at all to marry. Which is too bad because, being Don and Cassandra's son, he is easily one of my cutest Sims and I'd really like to pass his genes along. He's also taken out the Capp sisters, but the only thing on his mind was how many places he could woohoo. Takes after his father in more ways than one. Ariel Capp seems very determined to get Achilles to walk down that aisle, so we'll see whose will is strongest.

Speaking of Don, he recently threw a party in his snazzy downtown house where he lives with Dina because he needs more friends to advance in his Slacker career. Daniel Pleasant and Kaylynn Langerak were both invited, the first time they'd seen each other since Mary-Sue fired Kaylynn after catching her in bed with Daniel. It's been years at this point--Daniel is an elder now. At first, they just stared at each other. Then Kaylynn, who seems to still be very much in love with Daniel, started trying to flirt with him and kiss him, but Daniel was having none of it, even though he's still very attracted to her. He kept refusing Kaylynn and ended up going home early. It seems he truly has changed for the better.

Oh no! Check that you don'y have anything (antivirus, cloud storage, low disc space etc) interfering with your save process. If you have lost a sim, it could be bad news for your hood.

So I’ve just been screwing around on the game because I know I’m going to have to start over due to serious corruption, and I put a recreation one of my favorite couples through college because it’s been a while since I’ve done that, in this odd game universe Angela Pleasant’s grandfather-in-law is the same age as the twins, and he got two bolts with both twins and developed a crush on Angela, despite being engaged to what I usually play as Angela’s grandmother-in-law…

Edit to add image; using cell phone camera due to landline internet being down after Hurricane Ian.

There seems to be something in the water in Tinsel Town, because another couple is having a baby-Troy Snyder and his wife, Christie. Troy is retired and Christie is about 25 years younger than he is. That does not mean they're not passionate about each other because they do have a young daughter, who's about to have another sibling. Troy will be around at least for at least most of the new child's life, thankfully.

There's a fix for this somewhere. In the meantime you could use Simlogical's school book or the sim blender to hoik up the grade back to a C.

I dunno what happened, but I ended up deleting that neighborhood, anyway, and starting a new one. I will say, a bit disappointed I lost the Sim I made because she looked really neat.

But I'm prepping the new neighborhood for the BACC. Built two houses already. I haven't properly built things in Sims 2 for quite a long time, so I am slowly recovering the little tips and tricks I knew previously about building. Getting steps to be placed was a difficulty to recall! (No walls around the stairs. Then I could place them.)

So, made two starter homes right now. The second one I'll say I'm not super happy with, but, again, haven't built in a long time.
And a park community lot, as is allowed to be in the very beginning stage of the Build A City Challenge.

Look into the thing with the saving of files before you go any further. Seriously. Many modern systems need a lot of tweaking before they can be trusted to play nice with older games - they think it's a virus, they don't understand that the program can't do some things that newer programs do routinely. It won't be any fun for you if you keep losing saved data, and most of the time you just need to whitelist the game or shut down something running in the background to prevent it.

Wanda Tinker's children by Checo Ramirez grew up, but Checo didn't come to the party because their big sister Threnody, who is Popularity, threw it and she's not friends with him. Both Stephanie and Wendell rolled Romance.

The Jacquet twins Dennis and Yves and Tessa Tinker's twins Randolph and Scot grew to children. They live across the street from each other and I will strive to get them acquainted ASAP. Initial trips out to buy new clothes and go to the beach did not result in any meet-ups, though. All the Tinkers came over for Randolph and Scot, but the Jacquets,the richest family in town, are not as integrated into it's social life as well as everybody else, and they didn't invite anybody. The boys will have to fix that.

help

SimsArch's latest house's landscaping was too strong for 1 gardener, they had to call an army lmao

I got the chance to play a couple of days in everyone's households in my megahood, and there was some DRAMA.

What's happening in Pleasantview:
Hal and Beatrice had twins: Edmund and Simon. Ariel will definitely have to find another place to live now.

Bobby Broke and Lucy Burb threw a huge wedding party, which was a roof raiser. Desdemona crashed but didn't cause any trouble. I really like these two together. Lucy autonomously takes care of Bobby's baby with Desdemona. Bobby carries his dishes all the way upstairs to wash them if Lucy is using the shower there and farts hearts whenever she walks in the room. I hope they don't screw it up.

What's happening in Veronaville:
Puck Summerdream is the latest Veronavillian to be abducted by aliens. Although the experience was traumatic for him, it will at least give him the baby he's been wanting, since he and Erin had no luck getting pregnant due to Erin's age.

Sylvia Summerdream came home from college, started dating Lazlo Curious, and just proposed to him. There is an age difference there as well, but they are a good match in terms of personality and outlook on life, and I'm sure Lazlo would like to have one or two more kids. Young love is also in bloom, as Oberon's alien daughter Nova got her first kiss and woohoo with Mick Grunt, and those two started going steady.

Now that she's an elder, Goneril Capp is carrying on her father's practice of woohooing with her employees. (Consort had a long affair with his secretary, Tiffany Sampson, when he was alive.) Goneril's underling is Buck Grunt. Although the relationship is certainly unethical, Buck doesn't seem to mind it, and actually spent two full days hanging around Capp manor, staying through the first birthday party of Tybalt's alien daughter.

Lilith Pleasant Monty is pregnant again. Banquo, her first child with Mercutio, is now a teen, so this baby is definitely a surprise.

Sharon Monty, wife of Antonio, died during her second pregnancy. I'm not pointing any fingers here, but she did collapse in Jennifer and Romeo's bedroom, and she and Jennifer had been fighting quite a lot beforehand. And now Jennifer is unquestionably the mistress of Monty ranch.

What's happening in Strangetown:
Loki Beaker decided he needed a new test subject after the accidental death of his last one, so he has abducted the maid, Genesis. She has gone into aspiration failure as a result. Circe is also not happy about this and has been arguing a lot with both of them. Vidcund Curious was seeing Genesis, so he started investigating her sudden disappearance. (He has a lot of time to do so because he has gotten fired from his science job.) His questioning led him to Circe, and they talked for a long time, but I don't know if she's angry enough at Loki to actually betray him and tell Vidcund what he's done.

Tank Grunt had been holding his feelings for his dad's wife, Stella Terrano, in check, and I thought he had finally moved past them. Then he surprised everyone by dropping to one knee and serenading Stella right in front of Buzz. Buzz was furious, of course. There was so much fighting going on that Buck had to ask Tank to leave his son's birthday party just to have a little peace. Tank will undoubtedly have to move out, but will Stella go with him?

Jenny Smith had a want to get married, so she proposed to Albany Capp, and he moved in with her. They had a quiet wedding.

And some college drama that proves young adults should not be in a hurry to get engaged:
Alonzo Capp and Jade Smith had dated in high school and fell back in love in college. They both had a want to get engaged to each other, and Jade needed an aspiration boost before an exam, so Alonzo asked her. Then he cheated on Jade with a dormie while she was at class. Then she cheated on him with a townie teen she had me send to college, but she was not so discreet and got caught. Alonzo broke up with her. Soleil Capp--Alonzo's cousin and best friend--saw the whole thing and was furious with both Jade and Matthew. I guess it's not a good idea to get on Soleil's bad side because she was beating them both up every chance she got. I think she was even angrier than Alonzo! Alonzo has now graduated, but Soleil, Jade, and Matthew are still in the dorm together, and I'm worried that Soleil is going to get expelled if she doesn't cut out the fighting.