I added Veronaville to my Crystal Pleasantview to give some more family variety, as I felt sims would start to become related faster if I didn't. The Veronaville residents have mingled slightly.

I was playing Eris Beaker when Oberon Gossamer appeared outside her house and began to have a water balloon fight with a townie called Rose Dai, who thinks he's hot! For some reason, random people walk into Eris' house, which is funny considering, she's a Beaker... Anyway, she took her friends Scout Oldie, Zaitrarrio, and Bjeres to the Londoste, where Oberon was seen again sitting at the largest table on his own.

I then played the Smith Family, where Joe Smith brought Romeo Monty home from school. They became friends and Joe took him to 103 Road to Nowhere, a teen hang out I built. There, they didn't even interact. Tybalt showed up though, but didn't pick up a fight with Romeo, as he was carried away playing the pinball machine with James, Joe's nephew. Marine Oldie heartfarted over Tybalt, which... I don't think Sebastian Specter would be happy if her eyes wandered too far.

Hermia arrived and tried to interact with Tybalt, then left. She showed up again not long after, followed by Puck, who just stood next to the barbecue, before turning around and leaving. Hermia stayed for a bit, but she just sat on the sofa, tried to play Red Hands with Tybalt, got denied, and left.

I haven't interacted with Veronaville since I was a child, so seeing these sims interact again is filling me with nostalgia. And with them being inserted into an established hood, I don't have to worry about interrelations.

Trying to figure out who's going to get married and who's breaking up In my medieval hood. There's one guy responsible for this state of affairs, and I'm trying to get him married. We'll see if he gets that far, without being tarred and feathered by the various men who have had their fiancees seduced by him.

Edwin Tyler, your days as a single man are short. Enjoy them while you can, because I'm gonna make sure you stay married!

I sent townie teens Orlando Centowski and Ivy Copur to university to keep my last few college students company and while there, they fell in lurve. They are now married, expecting, and living in their own house. They are an adorable couple.

In other news, the second Tellerman pregnancy was twins, so they had to move to a bigger house and get on birth control. My want not to have a neighborhood overrun by one family takes precedence over Marylena's want to have 10 kids.

There is a cold going around the neighborhood. For most, that just means a day spent in bed to get healthy, but for some who won't sit still or somehow sneak off to work, it turns into pneumonia and then they have to go into the hospital for a few days until they recuperate. Reinaldo Davis was patient zero, I believe, and when I finally got around to his house, he was just leaving for work. When he got home, it was full-blown pneumonia, so to the hospital he went. Sharla didn't even wait until his side of the bed was cold before inviting her other boyfriend, Roger Pilferson, to move in. Roger is the rather homely offspring of Jessie Pilferson and Gunnar Roque, but he makes Sharla's engine rev like no one else. Even still, before having him move in, she had Ned Worthington over for a quick woohoo, just for fun. Sharla does whatever makes Sharla happy and never mind the consequences.

Andre and Tabitha Drake just welcomed their first child, Jayla!

After 8 months or something like that, I'm back playing Sims 2, I missed my little sims!
Today I sent Austin Picaso to the University, the oldest son of Matt and Jessica Picaso is one of my favs young Sims, so maybe I will play with him all the way to the graduation day!

David Ottomas has married Tammie Pilferson. This is quite an achievement for David. Tammie is the daughter of Mickey Dosser and Jessie Pilferson, and she really takes after her mother. She has had a lot of boyfriends, and even almost got married once before, to Mac Worthington. She accepted his proposal but when they got to the church, she got cold feet and broke up with him. So it's all the more amazing that she not only married David, but she actually wanted to marry him, especially since they have zero chemistry together. Tammie had no relationship with her father--Gunnar was much more of a dad to her--so I figure she finds David to be safe and stable, if a little boring. David wants to have kids and Tammie doesn't, so we'll let ACR decide what happens there.

Playing a small custom hood, I added Quadington college (try it if you like constant fighting; zombies have no sense of humor). I had a mod to stop generation of new townies. Kept getting a notice asking what sex I wanted the new dormie to be (another mod). But nobody ever showed up, of course. Then when I had bool prop enabled I got LOTS of errors: INVALID SPECIES. Just WHAT?! I took both mods out and am now getting dormies moving in. Would have liked to see them show up as some other species. Going to have to leave most students in college...there is no room in the main hood for more lots.

=
but but...I thought they couldn't die of heatstroke..or being frozen.

If you want to get technical he actually died of starvation, since when a Sim goes into the overheat or freezing state the Sim will essentially be stuck in place and if you fail to 'revive' them their hunger motive will eventually drop down, but that's not as catchy as saying he died of heatstroke.

One of the original sims in my neighbourhood, Sherman, had a townie wife called Misty. After Sherman died of old age, Misty (an elder herself) took an island holiday and managed to snag herself a nice island native called Dikk (she had a want to fall in love, so... ). Misty died not long after and poor Dikk had an unfulfilled want to have a baby. So I had him invite one of his old friends over to see if she felt the same.

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Ah, yes. Like dying from fire STUPID STUPID they actually die of starvation. I wonder if all the deaths that SHOULD have been from something else, produce a ghost that "died of starvation"?

This I have no idea about, sorry. Probably a question that the people in the random/stupid questions thread can help out with though.

Here's a list what ghost colours the various deaths have:

https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Ghost#Types_of_ghosts

And I can confirm that Sims that burn to death produce a read ghost, even though they "technically" died of an empty hunger bar.

Well, at least he's marrying her for her personality and cooking skills, right? She got the better of the deal. He might discover this someday..

When Sims reach middle age and the children are getting older and are less of a demand on their time, some start to rethink their life choices. But even I was shocked when Wilhelmina decided to leave her husband, George McCarthy, for Quenton Traveller, son of Trent and Trisha. Everything that George is, Quenton is not. Perhaps she fell in love with him because he was her oldest friend since childhood. Anyway, the ink on the divorce papers wasn't yet dry before Wilhelmina was pregnant with Quenton's baby. They had a quickie wedding and set up house. Poor George is rather heartbroken, but doing his best to hold it together as a single father of two. He does seem to be eating his sadness, though, and isn't as svelte as he used to be.

And then there is Dwight Worthington. Tragically, his parents were killed in a massive fire at the hospital during the pneumonia epidemic that took the lives of several patients and is still being cleaned up. After that, he and Dawna faced huge bills that they could not stay on top of, and the repo man came twice. Eventually, they got evicted and had to move to one of the seedy rentals out by the highway. But rather than focus on his problems, Dwight spent his time obsessing over Christy Stratton, who had been a coworker of his father's and had an affair with him, too, when she was younger. Despite being the Biggest Loser of the neighborhood, sporting a pot belly and tacky disco-era clothes, Dwight remains popular with the ladies and gets heart farts wherever he goes. Eventually, Christy asked Dwight to leave his wife for her, and he agreed. He broke up with Dawna on the same day she was fired from her job, that rat. But in the long run, I think she's better off, even though she's still very much in love with Dwight. She will move into a decent apartment with her mother, Stella, and stepfather, William Williamson, and leave all of Dwight's money problems behind.

Roadnight Neighbour suddenly had a wish to get a restorable car. Back in Pleasantview, when she was younger and her mum was alive, that was their thing and how they earned money, but since the move and everything that came with it, she hadn't done it in years. Of course, the game doesn't know she used to do it in terms of this recreated Roadnight in Strangetown, and she hasn't been doing tinkering or anything like that, so it made me happy she of all people got that wish. It really makes it feel like the same character, history and all.

Her son, Batty Neighbour, was given the car as he would soon turn adult and it could be practical. To be able to stove the car away, that is, so that Roadnight would have place to get a new one to fix up. Batty wanted to see a ghost and used his new car to drive to the Gothier graveyard for some ghost hunting. He didn't have any luck, but he did find a shady little poker club.

That, and he stole John Tricou's tomb. He hid the urn in his room, but it only lasted for one day before he got a guilty conscience and sent it back. John didn't seem to mind, at least.



Similarly to the deal with Roadnight and her cars, Espresso Neighbour and Ville Stenbock were married in Pleasantview until Espresso ruined the marriage by cheating. By the time they moved to Strangetown, i.e were recreated, Ville wasn't mad at Espresso anymore and they're still BFF's and attracted to each other, but they have barely interacted, let alone tried anything. They'll always care a lot for each other, there's no bad blood between them and the attraction is still there, but they also keep a respectful distance and don't really have a lot to say to each other. (Ville did buy lemonade from Espresso when he was selling on a community lot, though, and before leaving, Espresso admired Ville.)

Ville, inspired by his partner Broadway Larsen's success as an author, wanted to write a bestseller of his own. There was no guarantees, of course, but he tried his hand at writing a novel, and lo and behold, his debut book did become a bestseller. For the weekend, he invited over Espresso's roommate and nephew Link Larsen, who Ville adopted when Link was a teen due to CAS regulations, for a sleepover in the house he lives in with Link's older brother Broadway, after taking a brief visit to Club Dante.

The bed Link had as a teen is still there, but Link did god knows what on the computer instead, took two showers and finally woke Ville and Broadway up at three by playing pinball.
Broadway has been dating a bit outside of his and Ville's relationship to get some outlet for his secondary romance aspiration, so when Ville wanted to ask someone on a date, I thought he might as well do the same. He had a decent relationship and chemistry with Ripp Grunt, but he said no. Your loss, mate.

Speaking of Ville, I was a bit perplexed when Godspeed Neighbour seemingly invited him home from work considering she works in business and he in medicine. I almost got worried something was wrong until I hovered over the dude and saw his name was Teodor Jansson. Ville was Pleasantview's Downtown's "Chase Gilscarbo", so this was just the Strangetown variant of him. Pleased to meet ya. Good thing I put sideburns on Ville so I'll be able to tell them apart. ...In close-up and at the right angle, at least.

PT#9 passed away due to old age. Jenny is now in aspiration failure. Nervous Subject, who's been living with the Smiths, is doing in well in his job and social life and now wishes to fall in love. It seems like good signs in terms of his mental health and general well-being, so I think he's ready to find some place for himself.

Gamewise, I've added the Community time mod to my game. Really loving it.

I've been into my BACC earlier and the town is almost ready for winter with the extension on the service center now built.I've also got new CC installed in my game.Winter is about to arrive in Dodge and there might be a new couple in the spring.

Ida Juana Knowe is living up to her name - she spent most of last semester playing darts and is now on academic probation.

Tank Grunt has inexplicably changed his LTW and now wants to own five top-level businesses rather than be mayor. I find this happens sometimes with uni students - is it a glitch or normal? He hasn't changed his aspiration. Unfortunately for Tank, I don't play owned businesses, so he won't be getting his wish.

Lazlo Curious invited Crystal Vu to move into the Observatory. She brought $12,000 with her, and Lazlo had saved up about $8,000, so they've bought a place of their own at 81 Road to Nowhere. Crystal had been working in a low-level science job but dreamed of a career in Oceanography. There happened to be one in the paper that day, but Strangetown has a remarkable absence of oceans, so they may have to sell up again and look for a suitably coastal subhood.

In my Veronaville, Bottom Summerdream became the Summerdream family matriarch when Titania became an elder. She also married Benedick Monty, who took the Summerdream last name and moved in with them.

One recent morning, Benedick woke up saying something about "Caryl". Bottom woke up and furiously said, "Caryl? Caryl? That overgrown girl who never married and lives with her friend? Is a successful MVP sportswoman who bared your son suddenly not good enough for you? We're through, get out of here!"

Benedick left the Summerdream estate and grew to an elder alone, on a lot I designed for Sims who got divorced. Despite remaining in his job as a company president, he thought he would finish his life without anyone to share it with. Benedick and Bottom never reconciled their differences. As he's about to become an elder, Caryl Zarubin stopped by to visit and he thanked her for her friendship all this time. Caryl reciprocated, opening up that her time as a Townie was lonely so she moved in with a friend while hoping to also find someone to share her life with. Benedick became an elder at the lowest green aspiration level possible, while they realized they still had time they could use to be together if they wanted.

On the other side of the coin, Bottom knows she won't be an athlete forever as she knows from friend and fellow athlete Carla Capp that the post-player-career can be a long one. And she's now a single mother to her dating-age son while living with Titania, her husband (Kent Summerdream/Capp), and Titania's younger daughters (one with Kent, another older one with the long-deceased Consort Capp).

Help me, I restarted Pleasantview. This time, I am focusing only on the Goth and Pleasant families, specifically Cassandra, Alexander, Angela, Lilith, and their descendants--the two dynasty families of Pleasantview. So far, I've played a few days to set up each household and then I got the cohort of teens through college.

Cassandra had the want to kiss Don when I opened their house, so he went through with the wedding (and took the Goth name). I gave Cassandra a college degree but not Don, who I figure went to medical school somewhere in Central America. On their first night outing, they went to a post-wedding dinner with just Dina, and everybody behaved themselves. Cassandra got pregnant that night. Their first child is named Aurora. Alexander grew up with the Knowledge aspiration and immediately had the want to go to college, so I sent him early so everyone could be in the same cohort.

Daniel did woohoo with Kaylynn but did not get caught. Angela brought Dustin home from school, and they hung out by the pool while Daniel, Mary-Sue, and Lilith went on the first-night outing with Cassandra, Don, Darren, and Dirk. Again, everybody behaved themselves, although Lilith got in a fight with Sophie Miguel in the restaurant. I played the girls for a few days at home, during which time they mostly fought with each other and hung out with their boyfriends, until they both got the want to go to college.

Along with Alexander, Lilith, and Angela, I sent Dirk, Dustin, and Lucy to college as well. Lucy took the Fortune aspiration like Dustin and Dirk. I also moved in Sophie Miguel, but I made her a dormie. Angela and Dustin fell in love again, and Dustin got the want to get engaged but not Angela. Dirk and Lilith fell in love again but did not want to get engaged. Lilith fought all the time with both Sophie and Angela. Alexander likes Lucy but they didn't get any farther than that. Alexander, Lilith, Angela, and Dustin all graduated. Dirk and Lucy got put on academic probation and had to drop out due to lack of funds. Back in the neighborhood, everyone moved back into their family homes, and next we'll see where their wants take them.

So as I'm beating through getting Sims 2 up and running, I'm using Pleasantview-As-Shipped . . . and you know, if you're fairly quick with the clicking Daniel and Kaylynn are done woohooing and snoozing by the time Mary-Sue gets out of the car?

Sims should really freak out about the cuddle-in-bed-sleeping thing when they walk by a cheating spouse doing it.

On the bright side, got the graphic rules installed correctly. Now on to mods.

You know what I completely failed to back up? Bookmarks and my userstartup.cheat So annoyed with myself. Need to hook the old box up this weekend and get those pulled off.

Caligari Neighbour struggled with how to run Café Petite, that he had inherited from his late cousin's husband Bråke Neighbour. The business would probably have fallen into business-savvy fortune sim Robin Logren's, another cousin's husband, hands if the two hadn't had a falling out shortly before Bråke's death, but now Caligari was the owner and he didn't really know what to do. If his younger sister Storm had been alive she would have been the right person to run it, he thought, before realizing she was the reason he sat here owning a café in the first place.
Back in Pleasantview, Storm had owned a grilled cheese-diner that her and Caligari's old father had inherited when Storm unexpectedly passed away, and since then, the business had been passed around between old relatives as they went. The last owner of Coast had been Caligari's cousin Baywatch Neighbour, who bought Café Petite after moving to Strangetown to keep the tradition going. So, really, from Caligari's perspective it wasn't so much about running a business as keeping his sister's memory alive, and he was in fact the perfect person to do so.
He started out transforming Café Petite into a place where customers can both purchase cakes and desserts to take home and eat right there, hired some more employees and, with some help from his youngest sister Love Thy, renovated and re-decorated the place. The difference from before wasn't huge, but it felt a bit more light and modern, and they put a pool table in the backyard, pop art on the walls (not pictured) and grilled cheese on the menu along with the desserts to make it feel a bit more like Storm's old restaurant.

The aforementioned Robin Logren wanted to marry rich, and had started a bit of a fling with his colleague Kenny. They quickly fell in love and Robin eventually decided to go for it. He doesn't have a lot of time left in life and Kenny's old too, so frankly it wasn't a huge commitment for either of them, at least not from Robin's side. His late husband Phoenix, who was also the father of their passed away daughter Lovemore, remains his one true love. With that said, Robin took Kenny on a date to Café Petite outside its closing times, and they had some jelly that hadn't been put up for sale yet, and then Robin proposed, and they married in private soon thereafter.

I must have misunderstood Kenny's answer when Robin asked him how much money he had, though, either that or I ruined it by moving him in before marrying him, because the want to marry a rich sim wasn't fulfilled. Very well.
His roommate Stardust Neighbour wanted to go on a date too and met up her best friend General Buzz Grunt at Café Petite, but they quickly came to the conclusion that they're better off as platonic friends. Some days after that they suddenly went from zero bolts to two, however, so now I don't know anymore.

Newly retired General Buzz had taken in two locals in the military track - the Picasos - as well as Stardust's daughter Strummer Neighbour who was considered in need of protection in her line of work in the intelligence track. The idea had been to train the soldiers, but with Strummer there, and Buck still living at home, there was only enough space if a double bed was put in the downstairs bedroom, and the newlyweds had taken advantage of that. Now the place would turn into a daycare instead of a productive military base, and to add insult to injury Matthew had come down with food poisoning so now both he and Jessica were just puking away and in no shape to train. In fact, the only one who wasn't goofing off was Strummer, who Buzz was happy to give punching bag-lessons. Considering the Picaso farce, she would probably be safer just training herself rather than relying on any military protection.

Strummer and Buck had become good friends, and when Buck was free from school and Strummer from work, they hung out on Strangetown's community lots, including the newly re-opened Café Petite. No-one there was really skilled enough to pull off the more advanced desserts the café offered, so Strummer's cheesecake was burnt, while poor Buck didn't even get the cake he ordered. Luckily, the jelly from Robin's and Kenny's date was still on the table, so he ate of that for free instead. Strummer considered trying skipping the bill, but missed the opportunity. It was probably just as well or Caligari might tell her mum about it. Wouldn't want that.
Buck would soon become an adult and started looking for jobs. His lifetime wish is being a professional party guest, but there were no available jobs in the slacker career, so he ended up in the intelligence career just like his new bestie Strummer. They make a fine duo - two neat, shy pleasure sims, one friendly, lazy and serious, one grouchy, playful and active, working in intelligence but secretly dreaming about just getting paid to party. In any case, it was decided that two intelligence sims living together would suffice as far as security goes - as far as Buzz was concerned, they'd be safer relying on each other than the Picasos anyway, so after Buck had celebrated his birthday, he and Strummer moved Downtown together. Buzz gifted Strummer the punching bag, and, although reluctantly, he gave Buck the fishtank the two of them had spent so much time with together during Buck's childhood and teenage years. The morning after, Anni-frid Picaso was born.

A lot of drama in Pleasantview in just two households--well, three now--in just a few days. Let's see.

The college grads moved home. Alexander hung around the house for a day or so before getting the want to join the Adventurer career. Lilith and Angela both had to get jobs right away because their parents were low on cash: Lilith joined the Military, and Angela became an Artist.

By some miracle, Don got promoted so now he and Cassandra have opposite work schedules, which enabled him to woohoo with Dina while Cassandra was at work and Mortimer was sleeping. He's also flirting with Bella a lot. Nevertheless, Cassandra got pregnant again, and when she gave birth to their son, Alaric, Don went into aspiration failure.

Angela threw a party, during which Daniel got drunk and behaved very inappropriately (and disgustingly) so that now Mary-Sue is furious at him and his daughters both dislike him. He and Mary-Sue fell out of love and are like strangers living in the same house. She bought herself a minivan to compensate.

Lilith also got drunk at the party and seduced Alexander into his very first woohoo. Alexander doesn't have a lot of experience with women, so it was no surprise that he immediately wanted to marry Lilith. He took her to Londoste and really wined and dined her, so she said yes--well, she needed to get out of that house, since her mother and sister both hate her. Alexander planned a small family wedding for the next day, but Lilith brought Dirk with her. Alexander thought they were just good friends, but when he saw them flirting on the front lawn, he immediately called off the wedding.

Lilith then wanted to go on a date, so she called up Dirk. It was a dream date, and they ended up woohooing and getting engaged. She was very desperate to get out of the Pleasant house. I went over to play the Dreamers a couple of days, since she would move there. Dirk got a job right away in Law. Darren set a fire in the kitchen and went into aspiration failure, but then he pulled himself together. Mary-Sue pulled a few strings to get him a job in Politics. Lucy called up to invite Dirk to go out, and Alexander, Dustin, and Angela were also there, but not Lilith. Dirk autonomously apologized to Alexander, which he accepted, but I don't think he'll be so forgiving when he finds out they are getting married. The next day, Dirk had Lilith over for a late-night booty call, and they decided to just go ahead and elope. So the next morning, Lilith was explaining to Darren over cereal how she and his son had a really good date, and now he has a daughter-in-law. She kept her name.

Meanwhile, Angela had Dustin over for some woohoo but rolled no romantic wants about him. I don't think she thinks he is marriage material.

Skip Jr. Broke just graduated from college with honors (3.8), just like he wanted! It'll be interesting to see what kind of job he'll want to do in the future and how he'll combine it with his art. He's still in his dorm but he'll be leaving soon.

He's been with 4 men through college (romance asp) but never with a woman and he didn't want to leave without that experience first... So he asked Joanne (dormie) on a date. Joanne is a shy knowledge sim and the date went slowly, so the next day he asked her again. Even though she's an unemployed sim with brown hair (just like he likes 'em), it got to a point where the only date wants he had where to have a dream date and have dinner with her (or whatever that want is called). She, on the other hand, had finally rolled some kiss wants but I decided that Skip was telling me that he tried, but he just couldn't take that final step. He's just not into women! Joanne was very understanding so they spent the rest of their dream date splashing each other in the hot tub.

The next day he invited her out for a coffee to thank her for being understanding and tell her he wants them to remain friends (bye bye annoying tags!). I might be able to make her a playable in the future.

For future reference, if they'd gone to dinner he probably would've started rolling romantic wants again. It's like dinner is the key that unlocks the rest of the want tree. But if he was only doing it from curiosity it's probably as well it didn't go any further.