There are all TS2 Maxis neighborhoods with all furnished lots but without any sim: https://modthesims.info/d/615468/cl...-templates.html

Thanks, I've downloaded the empty Sims neighborhoods. Wait, Veronaville is meant for two families, not three, right?

My current character in the CK3 run is Empress Lucia of Italy (Family/Popularity/Leo). To help populate the world, I'll also add her two strongest neighbors, Emperor Leon of France (Fortune/Pleasure/Virgo) and Basileus Gabriel (Knowledge/Romance/Aquarius). I came to the aspiration/sign combinations based on their traits in the game.

Though thinking about all of her ancestors, maybe she's not the most interesting choice for a founder Sim?

Maxis' original Veronaville has three families: the extended feuding households of the Capp and Monty families, plus the Summerdream household.

So I'm playing with Pleasantsims' Fairplay neighbourhood, which is basically Pleasantview but genderbent, so the characters (while they did develop some differences) are pretty much the same. And I (of course) ran into some potential drama, however I'm not too sure I want to play it out this time.

Basically, Didi (Dirk) is engaged to Leon (Lilith), but while he's in love with her, it's not mutual, and she doesn't even have a crush on him, because they have only one bolt of chemistry. However, Nick (Nina) met Didi this one time, and turns out they have three bolts of chemistry. They've been talking, but nothing's started (yet?)

And now I'm not sure what to do, I don't think Didi would marry Leon bc she's not in love with him, but I also don't think she would want to break his heart by breaking up or even worse, leaving him at the altar, and I also don't really think she would run off with Nick since that would also be very mean to Leon (and also she's mostly focused on working her way up in the medical career), but that three bolt chemistry is just something I don't think I can ignore...

So yeah, what do you guys think I should do with them? I really don't have ideas. I guess I'm just not the storyteller I used to be...

How did you manage to do that? I've never been able to create a one-sided love through normal gameplay? And how did she accept his engagement without being in love with him? Or is that how that version of the neighborhood starts out?

As to what to do with them. If you don't want to hurt any of the involved Sims you could make a sotryline where Didi and Leon "talk it out" and Didi confesses that while she probably values him as a friend,s he's not in love with Leon. (for egnagement breakup without drama, you can u se the "Amicable Breakup" mod here (all the way down): https://midge-the-tree.livejournal.com/20926.html
Maybe Didi even has a friend she could introduce to Leon? Or you could create an additional character who fills that role?

I'd probably break them up. Better now than a few sim-years down the road.

I'd probably ignore the chemistry, or tinker with turn-ons and turn-offs. Nick's romance, presumably has the romance perk for extra boltage, so it's only two bolts anyway, probably, really. And how likely is he to be faithful? (Orphalesion, I've had romancemod+ACR induced events like this: Crystal married Lazlo in a pseudo-Victorian neighborhood because people *thought* he'd compromised her and it was the 'right' thing to do. She never loved him, but he loved her. The right-or wrong-bunch of mods can lead to romantic interactions without love.)

Didi lost her dad, right? And Leon's parents still broke up? Or at least had drama about cheating. I'd think they'd both go for a stable, friendly relationship with less passion over something that would (potentially) blow up in their faces later. And Didi might just view Nick as being too sexy for her, you know. Someone who's a 'ten' to her 'six', and wouldn't stay with her (leaving aside whether either assessment is correct, here). But I'd start by messing with turn-ons and turn-offs, because I've never had Lil and Dirk not have two bolts with the right turn-ons, so I think you can get them a bit more passionate if you want.

@Orphalesion
Oh, the one-sided feelings happened because I have a mod (not completely sure what, though) that makes it so that sims with low chemistry have a hard time getting a crush and falling in love, as for how she even accepted the proposal is beyond me.

@Sunbee
You know what, you might be onto something with the chemistry, Lilith and Dirk are also at least two bolts in my game. I think that might have something to do with Pleasantview having mis-matched zodiac signs which boost their chemistry, and these sims having correct ones, which do not. I didn't really want to change their turn-ons because they were picked by an actual person, so I thought they're "canon", but I honestly might just do that, since I never played this ship out. And you might be right about the whole "Nick is too much for Didi" thing, they're very much two seperate worlds.

@sugoisama as base game sims, even gender swapped clones, they don't have canon turn-ons per se, so I wouldn't personally feel any hesitation to change them. And you could always go at it from the other side, depending on what exactly the turn-ons and offs are: maybe Leon doesn't want Didi to be so married to her job (high level career turn-off) and once she reaches the top she decides to retire young? A lot of those are mutable, after all.

Sue Iana is pregnant. She and her husband Luis already have four children, the third of which (Freddy) is the product of an affair Luis had. After some back and forth splitting his time between the Ianas and his mother for the last couple of years, Freddy is now living with them full time again, after a traumatic day where he ended up shooting his mother after she tried to make him kill the man she said was responsible for her late partner's death. Added to this, Luis has a quickly developing gambling problem, and recently slept with an old college friend on her rotation.

So perhaps now is not the best time for a baby! Sue is vaguely aware she's probably pregnant, but hasn't given it much thought yet because all her focus has been on Freddy. Luis doesn't know yet. So where do we go from here?

Sue could have a termination, but that would go down like a lead balloon with Luis, who doesn't believe in abortion (in fact, the cause of his first breakup with Freddy's mother was that she told him "I was pregnant, but don't worry, I dealt with it").

Stress induced miscarrige, perhaps?

We could do "Sue goes away to 'look after a sick relative' and has the baby adopted" but that seems unlikely because Sue really wouldn't want to leave Freddy at the moment, and the baby would need to be adopted by someone in town, and I can't really think of anybody.

Or she has the baby, and we deal with population explosion, and this family trying to manage a new baby along with everything else they've got to deal with at the moment.

Thoughts?

Personally, I'd definitely keep the baby. I usually don't play with pregnancy terminating mods, but I feel like an unwanted pregnancy like this could spice up the story. Maybe the new baby could be a wake-up call to Luis to pull himself together?

It would make little difference what they did with the baby in my game because even being alrted to an unplanned pregnacy and ending it or giving the baby up for adoption can still serve as a wake up call for them to get their lives together and straighten themselves out if they want to raise any more children.

Excuse me, you really think a family in which one kid recently shot his biological mother on accident while she was trying to get him to commit a murder needs spicing up? This household's already pretty much at ghost pepper!

Sue wouldn't have an abortion, and I don't think (I'm not entirely up on your story) that she'd give the baby up, either. She considered booting Luis, right? But never Freddy.

Luis, though, has such a history of making Really Bad Choices. I wonder if for him this might be the final straw in his marriage. Would he think (wrongly, of course) that Sue got knocked up to get even with him/keep him from his affair and do something Sue could never forgive? (And she's forgiven an awful lot.)

I do think the default reaction from both of them would be to keep the baby, but I do think Sue at least would wonder whether it would be the best thing for everyone, especially with everything Freddy's going through right now. I don't much fancy figuring out who has to share a room again since the kids have just got their own rooms. Although perhaps Freddy won't want to sleep alone and he and Jose could share again...

I'm also now trying to figure out exactly what Luis could do that Sue wouldn't forgive. Considering she's forgiven him for lying to her and cheating on her for the first five years of their marriage, including carrying on his affair long after he'd told her it was over, and the child who was the product of that affair coming to live with them... I think she would really struggle to forgive him if he did something that hurt the children or put them in danger, but I also don't think Luis would do something like that because, despite his (many) faults, he is a fairly good dad. At least, he wouldn't do something intentionally...

I immediately thought Sue would be overwhelmed if she was for real - and I mean that the way health professionals use the word, she'd be burnt out. And burnt out people tend to put off or avoid big decisions until they no longer have a choice, even if they can sort of tell that staying passive could make their situation even worse. So from that perspective I thought the most logical thing storywise would be to let the baby be born.
I must be getting old and sappy, though - I feel like rescuing the whole lot of them and planting them in AndrewGloria's Veronaville, far from all real life dangers and darkness .

Should we put up a Statue of Liberty at the entrance to the Downtown Creek?
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

This makes a lot of sense. I can easily see it playing out like this. I think part of the issue (for me, anyway) is that I've already played Sue's best friend's house this rotation and forgot about Sue being pregnant, otherwise they could've hung out and talked about it. There isn't anyone now before I actually play this family that they would talk to about it.

I see relationship drama in other games and mine is the drama of Dodge going through a drought and winter is about to hit the town with supplies being cut off because it might be snowing along the trail the supplies get shipped on.I could see the agon trains shipping supplies to the tpwns out west getting stalled by blizzards further east.I get the drama of the farming towns in the old west in my BACC town of Dodge.

For Sue, there's the no good options so fall back on basic principles method of getting through. It's not the best, but it would destroy the other kids emotionally if you gave the youngest up for adoption. So grit her teeth and get through it. You can absolutely realistically go with her taking care of the baby because babies need to be taken care of and she must, it would be wrong to not care for the baby, but not actually caring about the baby. "I'll do for this one exactly as I did for the others so this one never knows they aren't loved or wanted." (Let me assure you that, at least for me, the love did come, eventually. Because I'm sure personal experience is showing through there.)

As far as Luis goes, there's also the final straw that breaks the camel's back, or the possibility that she loves him, she forgives him, but she's just too exhausted to keep on dealing with him, so out he goes, so she can focus on the kids and not have to deal with his issues anymore. This is more common in communities with strong divorce taboos in the USA: "Move out, get counseling, talk to the pastor. Let me see real changes and I'll consider taking you back." Doesn't guarantee results, but can function as a wake-up call for some people. For others, it just makes it really clear that they have no intention of changing and ends in divorce anyway.

This is exactly what happened with Freddy - Sue started off taking care of him because he was there, and it didn't sit well with her to leave it all to Luis, or to let the other children see that there was any difference between him and then. It was clear to everyone except Sue long before she'd admit it that she loved Freddy like he was her own, but it took Anna (Freddy's biological mother) reappearing and wanting custody for her to actually say "he's my son" and to start calling him "mijo" like she does Jose, rather than "niño" or "bebe".



I don't think Sue's quite there yet. Perhaps if she found out about the gambling and the latest affair (Luis would call it a one night stand, which is perhaps accurate now since he saw Dot on a date with someone else). Which doesn't make it any less bad...

This family drama sounds like what some of my gentry sims would've faced with arranged amrriages in my Pleasanview Epic Challenge if they stayed in Europe where they couldn't choose who they married instead of heading out to a new colonial settlement where they would get to chose a spouse.I have some sims comong to my BACC who lived in home backgounds with parents who cheated on each other and were in a broken dyfunctional marriage in childhood and they rebelled against tradition and chose to marry for love instead even if they had to go to America to homestead as pioneers out west in the 1840's or head to the new world to join a colony in the 17th century.

So I was wondering how you guys handle this type of stuff. I'm playing a vanilla Pleasantview right now (I had started one earlier, but didn't get far and I sorta started over). In this one Darren and Nina actually got engaged and I'm very interested in seeing them as a couple and where that would lead. However I'm having some dilemma with the wedding itself. I feel like it would make sense to invite all their friends/family to the wedding but as I just learned that results in disaster, considering Darren made friends with Don at some point. I kind of love the drama, but having a disastrous wedding would kill off the relationship between them (obviously) and I'm still interested to see them as a couple at least for a little bit.. Do you guys avoid inviting "problematic" sims to weddings, even if it would make sense for them to be invited otherwise, in situations like this?

If it were me, I would 100% invite every source of drama and just watch the world burn, but obviously you're not the same. Honestly, I think that since this is Darren's second marriage, and since Nina is a bit on the shy side, they might not even hold a big wedding, just one for close family (Dina and Dirk), or just elope without a big ceremony.

I would invite them for the drama, but I'm not sure it actually makes sense for Darren and Nina to invite anyone they suspect won't behave themselves. Nina knows she had a thing with Don, and presumably Darren knows too. Would they ask him to come, knowing he's not over Nina and that he might make a scene? And would Don go, knowing he's not ready to see Nina officially move on? If you really wanted him to be there, you could remove the love/crush flags, even just temporarily, so everyone could get through the day without fighting.

Don't be too quick to assume that a wedding jealousy fight disaster will kill any relationships. Once sims are BFF they're nearly impossible to split up perpermantly. Some relationships need a little more work, that's all.

Agree with sugoisama (drama for the win! ) but if I didn't happen to want that and I absolutely wanted Don there, I'd make him selectable with mods and keep an eye on him. Maybe even turn free will off if things were getting out of hand.

Nowadays I also have Drop Old Loves, so that when sims get married, their other crush/love flags are removed, so that's another option. Can't remember if it's one-sided, though, and only removes flags on the side of the sim getting married.

I want to start a new custom integrated hood with a kind of extreme BACC twist. Sims will start with absolutely nothing but some of the Seasons garden plants and a bunch of things from Sun & Moon sets and build up a civilization literally from scratch.

Ideally I want to have a single founder sim that all future generations are descended from and marry in townies when my sims need spouses. But I’m running into an issue where I can’t come up with a good explanation for why townies would exist in such a remote, undeveloped location.

Some ideas I had are:

1. The sims were abducted by aliens and taken to another planet for observation. But why wouldn’t they all band together when they first met?
2. The sims are the first sims in existence and live a primitive lifestyle with no modern amenities. But again why wouldn’t they band together rather than go it alone?
3. The founder sim has inherited land from a long lost relative and has moved to start a new life there, eventually founding a whole new town. They can only interact with sims they meet on vacation at first to symbolize the long way they have to travel to meet other people. I’d use the Visitor Controller to stop townies from walking by. But then the founder will probably repeatedly end up meeting the Social Bunny. I could use a no Social Bunny mod though, assuming the low social need doesn’t prevent sims from doing other work. Eventually as the town grows it would be more realistic to meet others walking by.

I guess I’m curious if anyone out there had any thoughts or other ideas for a plausible backstory that could explain an empty town with townies.

Genetically engineered sims with no ancestry or free will released from The Factory/put there by The Witch

Not gonna lie, I think townies are things you can't really explain without resorting to "the game has to work" as the excuse

They are just sims living nearby (other village). Someone has seen your sim arriving, there were rumours and they were just curious to come and see your sim.

If your plan is to play this neighborhood as a historical hood, then you could say that your founder has left their tribe and decided to start a new settlement. The townies are nomads, merchants, or maybe the autochthonous people of the region that your sim is colonizing and they live right outside of the hood borders, on mountains or hills if your sim is building a settlement in a valley.
If your BACC is set in modern times, it is quite difficult to think of a scenario... If the hood is tropical, with isles, your founder is an explorer and the townies are indigenous people. This would require making your own townies, or just dressing them appropriately to fit the theme. If the hood is in the desert, I would probably imagine that your sim is starting a new settlement near an oasis and the townies would be inhabitants of a nearby town.
If you want to be more creative, you could think about alien abductions or a reality show like Hunger Games, where people are thrown in a wild environment to see if they manage to survive. This would actually be super cool because you could create "villains" later on, trying to stop the settlement to grow once it becomes indipendent from their creator.

Or maybe your founder is just grumpy.

@khagen -I've gotten a BACC started and am playing it as the old west in the 1840's located in Dodge.I started out with only one couple and other couples are slowly arriving to claim homesteads over the next few years with one new couple arriving each year in the spring or even every other year if nobody arrived that spring.I just don't have them taking regular jobs and have them farming or doing vocational work instead as they need a larger population to take jobs.I also limit to buying household objects at the service center to reflect on them having to pick a mail order purchase up at the post office.

More Luis and Sue drama!

I posted on the last page about Sue being pregnant and not being sure what to do about it. In the end, burnt-out Sue did nothing, and along came baby #5, Gaby. Luis is still gambling, and still carrying on his affair with Dot.

And then last rotation his best friend Leo saw him with Dot.

It's important to note here that, not only is Leo Luis' best friend; Leo's wife Lily is Sue's best friend. Which makes Lily and Leo great at teaming up and helping Luis and Sue from both sides (when Sue found out about Luis' son Freddy, Lily looked after Sue and Leo went round and gave Luis practical help with the four children), but also means anything Leo knows will inevitably get back to Lily.

So, when Leo sits down to confront his friend about it, does he say:

1. I'm telling Sue about your affair

OR

2. If you don't stop, I'm telling Sue about your affair

It's possible the difference is inconsequential given how I don't think Luis will take him seriously and stop (or at least, he might stop for a while and then start again). Another question is, if Leo says #2, what does Lily say to that (because of course he's going to tell her).

Two other factors at play here are that last time Sue found out Luis had had an affair (with Freddy's mother Anna), she told him "If you cheat on me again we're over". Lily definitely knows she said this; it's possible Leo does too. The other factor is: Freddy is just about to testify against his mother in court. Leo definitely knows about this, so it's possibly he might hold off on saying anything to Sue until after the trial, so Luis and Sue can both be around to support Freddy. Or at least Luis might try and convince Leo not to say anything until after the trial.

So... any thoughts/opinions? I thought I'd figure out what Luis and Leo where saying when I played the conversation, but I have and I'm still unsure...

Possibly "Stop the affair with Dot, and confess it to Sue yourslf, or I'll have to tell her."

From story telling perspective I am looking for ideas of how to handle when some sims just fight all the time and I am not sure how to deal with the slapping head animation. Not sure how I feel about constantly seeing two sims smacking one another all the time ????as far as storytelling. Do you make up silly things they fight over ?

NatteryakToad,

Lily will tell Sue, right? There is no way Lily would keep that secret, or is there? Would Leo think about that when he confronts Luis? Because I'm seeing another option for that conversation: the one where Leo says "Luis, you're a moron, we'll be helping Sue get on her feet, and don't you dare try anything. Call me when you realize what an idiot you are and we'll talk."

Is Sue's previous ultimatum iron-clad? Is she absolutely filing for divorce when she hears or is she likely to waffle? Would Lily feel any guilt about telling her?

CoffeenSimming,

I have a mod for single slap, which looks better to my mind, and in general one doesn't resort to assault and battery unless one really has no better option, so you might think about whether there are taboos and/or laws about violence in your neighborhood, and if so, what would constitute moral justification to fight anyway. Most of my sims don't get into slap fests, unless someone has been caught cheating, or the family is severely abusive. The base game Pleasants are the prime example of both, generally, for me.

@CoffeenSimming -I don't actually even see that with the Lot Visitor Controller Mod and even if it happened one day when my towns get bigger it would still lead to sims doing the fighting being banned from that community lot or evicted from their apartment if it was happeneing in an apartment lot.I also use a Mod to disable NPC neighbors in apartments so I'd only get playable households as neighbors and could move any out who do start fighting each other.

Small dilemma here. I have a male child sim named Bubba Scrubba on his last day of the child stage. His sister Barbie Dahl will become a Popularity sim but what aspiration would best suit a Bubba Scrubba?

I'm thinking the
aspiration but would appreciate any suggestions for why another aspiration would fit. No Freetime, so secondary would be irrelevant.

Bubba Scrubba? He certainly sounds like he'd be fun to be with! Pleasure sounds a good choice.

Somebody here had a teenboy called Soda Pop. Was that you? Bubba Scrubba and Soda Pop sound like a really fun pair of friends.

What's Bubba's personality and star sign? Have you got a pic?

(I don't have Freetime, so I don't have secondary aspirations either.)

@AndrewGloria Soda Pop is in Emerald Heights, which is one of the fan-made neighborhoods. It might have been my Soda Pop or someone else's. He's a family sim, with child sister Taffy and toddler brother Bubblegum, living with their mother, when you open their house. His father (his siblings' fathers are deceased) is also quite the character.

@SIMposiast Due to prior real life experiences, Bubba Scruba would be a knowledge sim and go into oceanography! (The Actual Bubba is a Game and Fish officer. Very smart man, had a Master of Science, I forget which field.)

As it turned out, he became a Pleasure sim wanting to top the Slacker career. I could have done Knowledge but don't have Freetime for the Oceanography career. Don't know anything about an actual Bubba Scrubba, figured the sim kid's name was a humorous joke.

I can see pleasure sims in my towns being the types that didn't want to grow up if they kept that aspiration into adulthood and those ones often have trouble sticking with a career and often change jobs and don't make it very far so they'll often end up struggleing financially.

I'm toying with some ideas, and I need to bounce them around.
So, I play a medieval uberhood, with Mortimer Goth being king as of right now. But storywise, I need a reason for him to marry Dina.
Issue is, she's a...let's say, courtesan, at my house of ill repute, the Silky Pearl. As is Nina. I need a reason for their paths to cross. Toying with the idea of Dina writing to Mortimer to accept a previously-declined offer of charity after his brother-in-law/her husband's death, and their relationship to go from there. I'm not 100% sold on that, though.

Witchcraft obviously. I saw Goodie Dina with the devil, she was using magic to seduce His Majesty King Mortimer. I saw her at the devil's sacrament.

Aside from that, if you're into love at first sight, King Mortimer went to investigate rumours of immoral activity at Silky Pearl, because he's a ruler of direct action. Then he saw Dina and felt a strong attraction ever since.

Perhaps bandits destroy the Silky Pearl, causing the ladies to flee. And King Mortimer just happens to come upon a fleeing and terrified Dina, whom he rescues and falls in love with?

I don't really have a plan to destroy the Silky Pearl because I love it so much, but I could absolutely see her maybe fleeing from a violent customer or the like. Might be a good plot.
The other option is for him to come across the brothel while travelling to the docks, and just...mistake it for a normal tavern XD it'd be a little out of the way, though...

Well, you could look at historical courtesans who managed to infiltrate royalty, like Madame DuBarry. She managed to get an inside contact to Versialles acquired a title for her and that got her close enough to King Louis XV to catch his eye.

Are there any knights or courtiers Dina or Nina could seduce that would allow them to visit court as their guests? Maybe the court could hold a masquerade and Dina could meet and bewitch Mortimer while still wearing her mask and only reveal her true identity when he's already in love with her? Then a fake title could be arranged for her under the pretence that she and Nina are princesses from a faraway land and that would make her appear good enough to marry royalty.
Or they could seduce someone who has the power to hire them as Cassandra's ladies in waiting so that Dina could meet King Mortimer.
If Don is around in some compacity, he could be their contact who gets them into the court.

Dina doesn't need an introduction. She was married to the now-missing royal consort's brother. She's at the Silky Pearl from necessity because he was a bit of a wastrel and didn't provide for her. The King graciously extends his protection over her and brings her into his household. She can act as hostess in place of the missing consort, her sister-in-law.

As someone who loves to read historical romances, I'd say the opera house, or your game's equivalent entertainment establishment, is a great place for them to meet. Though it'd be hard for Mortimer to get away with marrying someone so far out of class. It'd be Mortimer's second marriage though, so maybe the court would be okay with it if they were guaranteed that Alexander or Cassandra would be the heir. Otherwise he could just keep her as one of his paramours without getting married.

Peni and Orphalesion make good points about having good social connections, too. To me, Dina's widow status would probably be enough to get them invited to some fringe social events that Mortimer would also be invited to, even if the majority of the court was unwilling to accept them. Which brings me to my second suggestion: a country party. Idk if that's the right term for it, but basically it's when you get a third party (with good social standing) who's friends with the person trying to marry up, to invite the target(s) to a party. And country parties are great because the guest list is limited, as the host naturally only has but so much extra room, and the guests are usually staying several days for a series of activities/events, some of which might be open to a wider audience. But anyway such settings are prime for Compromising Situations, after which the compromised parties have to marry. You would think that, knowing that, no one would ever go to those things but in my romance novels they always do. And indeed, some bystanders even seem to go for the chance of scandal, so they can be the first ones to spread the gossip and get invited to later parties where they can share their first hand knowledge.

So I think a TS2 equivalent would be Don throwing a hunting party--you could even make it a vacation--and inviting the Goths, the Calientes, and some other people. From there, it's a simple matter of getting Dina to steal a word at dinner, do a few activities with Mortimer, etc. and then he falls for her. Or, if you want a more mercenary angle, Dina and Mortimer get caught in a Compromising Situation (Don can even be an accomplise who catches them, for a fee of course) and Mortimer, as a man of honor, goes through with marrying her.

yes, that's what i was thinking! i was thinking maybe he previously offered protection but she refused because she believed funds were better than they were, but quickly got proven wrong. I may combine that with the handmaiden idea, and have him hire her as Cassandra's handmaiden, and perhaps she wheedles her way to the top,

I'm not sure if this is technically a story dilemma or not, but I'm not sure what I'm to do here.

So for a little bit of an explanation, this pertains to a weird, though not actually sure if it's weird, turn of events in my year old Pleasantview. Okay, so Tank Grunt got married to one of the children the Oldies adopted after Mary-Sue, her name's Tiffany, and took her surname. They have four children, but the relevant one is their second child, Marine, a teenage girl. Tiffany has a younger adopted brother called Zidane, who married Johnny Smith and had a son called James who is a teenager. Simple, so far. Ripp married Meadow Thayer and had three kids with her, the relevant one here is their eldest, River, a teenager girl.

So, what's the problem and why is the above information relevant? James triple bolts with River, his cousin's cousin... I'm not sure if it's technically incestuous, or not. Because I'm just imaging Marine showing up to a family gathering and then finding out that two of her cousins are hooking up with each other.

It's one of those things I'm just confused about. Is it not as gross as I think it is? Should I just allow it, or have them friendzone each other and find other prospects? They don't roll wants for each other, they just triple bolt, are crushing on each other due to autonomy, and are trying to woohoo when I'm not looking.

I have been mulling over this since it happened and with me being as indecisive as I am, I keep coming up blank. Does anyone have any ideas? If not, that's fine

Just remember this: it's a game, and there are no real-life consequences for cousin marriage-except to totally confuse the family tree. Nobody's going to have 3 feet or 6 noses, so it's a bit silly to get concerned about a non-issue, really.

But : if you really don't like the idea, friend-zone them and put them on friend status, to keep them from being romantically involved. Or you can change their turn offs and turn ons to do the same thing.

Unless a family is already pretty badly inbred, marrying a cousin's cousin wouldn't be a problem even in real life. And unless your neighborhood is huge, sim family trees are going to cross. This is a time to examine the source of your squick and interrogate your assumptions in order to figure out why the idea is uncomfortable for you. Most likely you'll realize that it's based on something nebulous and trivial and be able to dismiss it going forward.

It's barely possible that it's based on something real and traumatic, but that's not the way to bet (and if it happens to be, ouch, my sympathies, but on the other hand, you'd have to deal with it sooner or later and a sims game is a pretty safe space to start the process in).

Yeah a cousin's-cousin isn't going to be blood-related to the first sim. Not unless like Peni said they have some really bad inbreeding so that the cousin's cousin side is also blood related already. Not gross at all, awkward for the shared cousin? You decide.

I have a perfect example of this in my game. Roderick Kapitha is dating Kaylee Piper. Roderick and Kaylee share Xander Hart as a cousin because Xander's Dad is brother to Roderick's mother and Xander's mother is sister to Kaylee's father. But Kaylee and Roderick? No relative connection. Xander can suck it up if he feels weird his cousins from each side of the family is dating.

Ah, I just thought that it was incestuous for some reason, thank you all for the reassurance. Since they seem head over heels for one another, I'll see what they decide to do, as the hood isn't inbred to my knowledge.

Sounds good, and remember that in a Feudal Society being the handmaiden of a Royal Princess would have been a coveted position of honour, and would have been filled by a noble, such as Dina

Yeah it's not incest, River and James don't share blood, they're just cousins (second cousins?) from an aunt/uncle's marriage. Like the others have said, you could go forward with it just fine. If you find it weird (I do kinda but that's me), then you can just ignore. Depends on what you think.

However, if they do get together, they are contractually obligated to quote Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune and call themselves cousins. I don't make the rules.

I can't remember if I've talked about this household before, but I'm back round to them again and I still don't know what to do with them, so here we are!

Gabriella Newson got pregnant to a dormie named Gavin (it is important to point out right now that this is a different Gavin to her brother...) in college, and they got married after graduation. They now have two sons, George (who has graduated and is living at home again) and Gabe (who's just gone to college). Gabriella, Gavin and George are all Romance sims. Gabriella and Gavin have never had eyes for anyone but each other since they got married (Gabriella had a thing with David Ottomas around graduation, but that's ancient history). George dated Valentina Hart in high school, but she went to college ahead of him and fell in love with a dormie, who she's now married to and expecting her first child with. Since they broke up, George has dated a whole heap of dormies and a couple of playables, but no one he's willing to commit to like I think he might have done had Valentina been availabe.

I'm just finding this household so boring to play. Gabriella and Gavin go to work, come home from work, have multiple woohoo wants without needing to go on a date, woohoo, garden and paint. George does to work, comes home, asks some random dormie on a date... it's all very repetitve. So does anyone have any ideas of how to make them less boring to play?

If they keep rolling the same wants again and again, maybe you could focus on achieving their lifetime wants and see if doing some different activities gets them out of their rut. Maybe make up a story about why they want the particular lifetime wants they do. Gavin could have a midlife crisis and realize he never sowed all his wild oats, for instance.

If they are low on money, maybe they could take in a boarder in the empty room, and that might cause some conflict. At least it would give you someone different to play in the household.

Sometimes if I don't know what to do with a Sim, I simply send them to a community lot, which can trigger new wants.

In my game members of families like this, which might become boring, tend to have friends and interests outside the family. They will invite these friends round, or maybe go on outings with them. I find that Romance Sims tend to get a lot of wants for friendship with other Sims, often with Sims with whom a romantic relationship would be highly unlikely. If you look at what their friends are doing, your Sims might be able to help them. For instance they might help a friend in the Politics career to campaign and get elected.

Personally I like community lot visits, and I don't use Community Lot Time, because that would make them have to hurry back home far too soon. My Sims don't usually order groceries on the 'phone -- they go out to the shops to buy it. They can also go out shopping for clothes, furniture and other things. Or go to a hairdresser for a haircut. Once they're out there's always a good chance they'll run into old friends, or make new ones. Most of my outings use casual groups on unscored outings. Often other Sims they meet outside are asked to join the group, and thus come home with my Sims. Then you can entertain them and give them a meal. May I suggest Peterskywalker's Children and teen townies always visit community lot, so you can meet children and teens when you're out. (By the way you don't need Apartment Life to use this mod. My highest EP is OFB, and I've been using it for several years now.)

The Sims is life simulation and life should never be boring. If it is boring, whether in The Sims or in Real Life, then it's time to spice things up a bit. With a bit of imagination, your Sims can do just about anything that's possible in Real Life. (They can also of course do some things that you could never do in Real Life! )

Sims possibly marrying a distant relative often happened in the 18th century as Americans began moving out west where populations were very small and spread out with few other choices for a marriage.It opten happened even in Europe thoughout history even by accident with poor unkowingly marrying a distant cousin as they often couldn't read and might not know they were related.

Marrying relatives in Europe was not due to illiteracy. People knew their relatives and in addition to that, priests recorded all births, marriages and deaths in books and kept track of the degree of relation that way.
Marriages between relatives were much more common amongst nobility and haute bourgeoisie, not the poor people. These people knew that they were related and they intermarried with the purpose of keeping power and wealth within the family.
I have the impression that Americans use the term "incest" more widely than Europeans. A cousin's cousin is not blood-related at all. Such a relationship might not be usual, but I definitely would not consider it incest.

In olden times marrying your cousin meant that wealth and land of both parties would be kept within the family/dynasty/clan rather than being distributed to other, potential rival families/dynasties/clans.

However that idea came with its own problems, just ask the inbred Habsburgs.

The biological problems related to marrying even a first cousin only become problematic when this practice is repeated multiple times (in the sense of increasing probability of birth defects, etc).
In the Sims, biological issues cannot happen at all.

You can marry your first cousin in Canada if you want. Our destination marriage market for that existed before it did for "gay" marriage. And continues now that LGBTQ* marriages are recognized in more places.

You can marry my first cousin if you like. He's single and I am not going to marry him (even if it's legal), but maybe you can?

Poor might not always know about all relativves if they'd moved around a lot or relocated which did sometimes happen and mistakes were made in records on occasions though most of the time they did try to avoid marrying relatives that were closely related and the marriages between relatives were mostly ditant relatives which might happen because they didn't know about it and there weren't many other options in the colonies where populations were small and scattered around.

Denise Jacquet wants woohoo in bed. I didn't know that Fortune Sims could have wants like that. Especially seeing she's not in a relationship. Maybe I should just let it pass as a silly temptation. But I must say, I think I'll lock it and see what we can do with it. She has a good friendship with Milburn Pennybags, the billionaire financier behind Monopolis. But it is just a platonic friendship and I don't think Milburn would be interested in a romantic relationship; he's in the middle of a passionate affair with Freya Hentze, a very sexy looking young Romance Sim. Denise's only other friendship is with Tess Joyner, one of Gilbert's girlfriends. Now, Bluewater is a suburb of Veronaville, so a relationship with another woman cannot be ruled out. But I can't see Denise being happy to share a girlfriend with her son. However if Tess, when she finds out about Gilbert's other girlfriend (who is confusingly also called Denise!), were to dump him and take up with his mother instead, that could put a different complexion on things.

Denise's want is just for woohoo. There's no mention of love or friendship. Does she just want a one night stand. Maybe she's jealous of Gilbert getting regular woohoo. If it's just woohoo without commitment she wants, there are plenty of promiscuous Romance Sims of both sexes around the neighbourhoods, who will be willing and able to meet her needs. Near neighbours Miriam Hunter and her lodger Nicholas Watson in Toboggan Way would be more than happy for her to have woohoo with both of them!

Any thoughts on what we might do. Has Denise Jacquet behaved like this in your game?

This would be just a wish to recapture youth for an elder as they would most likely not be really wanting to do that though they might wish to be young againso it's more likely to be a wish to be young again and to be married.Mine are unlikley to woohoo without being married first and usually only do it with a spouce.

Please don't anyone take this as a slight, but I used to find elders boring to play. My new rule, though, is whatever elders want, they get! And honestly, it makes them more fun because they don't have so many of the responsibilities of the younger generation, but they usually have the time and means to make their wants come true, and there's no telling where they might lead. So let's get Denise some woohoo! Perhaps to start, a younger man or woman not looking for any serious ties may be just the ticket. Maybe Denise just wants to scratch an itch and then she'll be on to other pastimes. But honestly, there's no telling until you fulfill it. Even if she does want more of a relationship with that particular Sim but that want is one-sided, that may be a signal that she's ready to enter the dating pool and you can look around for a more suitable long-term match.

I think Denise is going to go with sturlington's suggestion and go all-out for woohoo. And I think this fine gentleman may be just the one to satisfy her need:

Wow Denise, he's a catch! A male model! Go for it girl!

If a Child/Teen Sim has a low Interest in Entertainment, yet not high in Culture, how would you describe their media consumption behavior? (games, movies, music, books)

Legacy Heir Merlin has three ladies he's in love with. Christy, Family Sim, works at the pool Merlin's mom owns, friends since he was a child, I always expected him to marry her because both family sims, two bolts. Jaiden, college student, family sim, three bolts. Beth, the Diva, fortune sim, two bolts. Beth is probably out of the running: she didn't show up to his graduation party and, well, the founding generation were both fortune sims and neither one liked being self-employed. Both are elders and both are still whining that they didn't get a job. (Y'all got $600,000+ in the bank from your businesses, what for do you want jobs?!)

Problem is, Merlin isn't rolling a want to marry any of the ladies. And his LTW is a Golden Anniversary. So . . . he has to get married, he's the heir, who should he marry? (Merlin's little brother Galahad is deeply pleased that he, pleasure sim, is not faced with this problem.)

Get them all on the same lot. Have him scope the room. See who he rolls wants to date. High probability of rolling an engagement want on a date.

None of them. Because why would he roll a want to date when he could roll wants to talk to his parents and talk about hobbies and dance and garden and hike?

I tried all the easy stuff. Jaiden lights up most, of course, having one more bolt than the other. Right now, having just moved home after graduation, he wants to talk to all three ladies and has three generic hobby wants.

I think I'd go for Christy. I just find it so romantic when childhood friends marry and stay together for life.

If he's looking for a long-term commitment and a quiet life, which is a reasonable interpretation of the Golden Anniversary LTW, then how do you think he'd go about deciding, in the absence of a solid romantic preference or sexual draw? Income? Boltage? Toss of a die? Since it's a legacy, you could take them all off birth control and he could marry the first one to show pregnant.

You have his entire adult life to decide in, so you needn't be in any hurry. Ultimately, the main thing is to ask yourself, What's most fun for you?

Peni had good advice! I'd throw in thinking about who has the more interesting genetics. I love having a variety of recessive genes being mixed in to see what pops up later on so tend to pick the best partner for my sims with that in mind.

My best advice would be to go with wichever one was the cosest friend as friendship would mean a longer lasting marriage.I'd have hime choose the one he was best friends with if they were still single.

Spoiler Alert for anyone who reads my Simblr, but I hoping to get some ideas or advice about a plot choice. If you read my Simblr and you don't want a spoiler stop now.

Okay, so two of my Sims started an affair in the last rotation. They are ex-husband and wife. The woman's new husband is the town's Criminal Mastermind. He does not take betrayal well and is furious when he discovers the two together. He allows the divorce and doesn't murder them both on the spot because you can't become Criminal Mastermind without some sense of self-preservation.

Anyway, now he has to act.
1. He could send them poisoned wine while they are vacation so he can ensure it can't be traced back to him
2. He could instead try to destroy them - have a woman seduce and become pregnant by the man to pull him away from the wife who is already in a poor financial state after the divorce, then ensure she enda up destitute and alone.
3. He could burn their house to the ground and make it look like an accident.

Alternatively, this could make him look so weak that his enemies eliminate him and the lovers have no idea how close they came to death.

Or other thoughts. What should he do to revenge himself and ensure his continued position of power as Criminal Mastermind.

As you say, your criminal mastermind has an image to maintain; he can't make himself look weak. I'm very surprised you let the divorce happen, in that case, but eh, it works too. Anyway, I'm thinking you need something that can't be traced back to him, something that involves someone else doing the dirty work because that's the first place authorities would look (if there are any authorities in your hood), no matter how the ex-wife dies. Especially if he's notorious and they've been trying to pin him for a while.

Anyway, what's your mastermind's personality like? I guess at least a little patient/rational if he divorced, rather than opted for instant murder. But is he the type to do a sneak attack, when someone leasts expects it? Is he the type that goes overboard--like burns the whole city down to get one person? Because maybe he needs to destroy their entire lives first and everyone around them. Then kill them, you know? Or maybe he doesn't really want to kill his ex, because he did love her, and he just wants to make her suffer a bit, maybe even get her to come crawling back. *Shrugs*

Any one of your options could work, really, but what kind of people are we talking about here? Is anyone going to put up a fight? Go into hiding? Or will they be completely gullible? Are any kids involved? Who has any leverage? Are there any sims you like more than others? What do wish for them?

So you know, tell us a bit more about your sims and who they are and where they came from; that usually helps someone find the right path to take for their story.

As suggested above, you don't have to necessarily kill the ex and boyfriend. Death doesn't do all the revenge possible. What could happen is that he makes the ex and her boyfriend's life destruct-by getting them fired, losing their home, etc., in order to prove his power. Killing people is a last resort for the truly desperate.
In doing so, he only looks like he's being kind-by letting them live, he gives them reason to believe he's forgiven her for her transgression, but hides his anger and betrayal. Think of Don Corleone in the "Godfather". He only killed people when really pushed to it. Most of his enemies knew if would be dangerous to cross him and thus did not.
The few who did regretted it. "Make them an offer they can't refuse."

Thank you for your input and for giving me permission to go into the complicated details surrounding this situation.

Felix is our Criminal Mastermind. He's almost 70 years old, in a position where he's being perceived by other Criminal organizations as being on the decline. This includes that recently one of his lieutenants was killed. Also, he is on the decline, honestly, suffering incontinence issues (he's peed himself more than once since he became an elder). If he's being honest with himself, he is in a position where there are likely to be attempts on his own life, and they might even come from within if his own people start to question his strength.
Mary Anne is Felix's first wife - they had been married about 5 years. Before that, he had lovers, but the only truly serious one was not interested in marriage and died about 20 years ago. He was pretty fond of Mary Anne.
Felix also has an older brother, Fletcher, and a twin sister, Abigail, with whom he is close.
No one outside of his organization is aware that he is a criminal.

For Mary Anne, this is marriage #3. She was married to Cory for 10 years, and had two sons, Robbie and Charles. She then married Garrick (also about 10 years of marriage), and had another son, Rick. Shortly after that divorce, she married Felix. She's a serial monogamist, and plans to marry Garrick again soon now that she is divorced.
The reason her marriage didn't work out with Garrick in the first place is: 1 - he wanted more kids and she didn't, something he may have gotten over by now. 1 - Mary Anne is a gambling addict and spent all the time she wasn't at work at the Casino, gambling.
Honestly, as attracted to each other as Garrick and Mary Anne are, they are not the best pair. Once remarried, Garrick will soon realize that Mary Anne still spends a lot of time at the Casino (it'll have be to a different one, since Felix is not going to let her back into the Casino he owns, and not gamble on house credit either), and their financial situation may not be strong enough for Mary Anne to continue in being retired, which would mean there's no time for Garrick outside of work and gambling, again.

Regardless, how things went down - Charles, Mary Anne's son, found out about the affair. He told Mary Anne to break it off and confess to Felix, or he would do it for her. She did confess to Felix, who was willing to forgive her (and was trying to decide whether he had to kill Garrick or could take care of him some other way). But when Garrick later showed up to take his son Rick, who lived with Felix and Mary Anne (as did Charles) on an outing, Felix caught them being intimate in a clear violation of Mary Anne's story that she had ended things. This happened in front of Charles and Rick, so Felix couldn't well murder them both in front of the children.
Instead, he allowed Mary Anne her divorce. Charles and Rick are actually both pissed at Mary Anne and Garrick for betraying Felix.

Adding to the complications:
Garrick's mother is the head of the SCIA and not likely to ignore her son being murdered, so Felix has to be doubly careful not to get caught, in addition to him being the most obvious suspect as the jilted ex-husband.
Garrick's father is one of Felix's best friends.
Mary Anne's mother is married to Felix's brother, Fletcher.
Felix cares about Robbie, Charles & Rick, and hates the idea of murdering their mother - his own mother died in a fire while giving birth to him and Abigail (seriously, it was pretty crazy).

So if he were to ruin lives, he would have to somehow only affect Garrick and Mary Anne, not the rest of the people in their lives whom he also cares about.
And if he doesn't move quickly, he's going to end up dead himself, which may already be in the works.

So, how should Felix proceed? And how should I proceed with my story?

Okay, I can see the logic behind some off your other suggestions now--that's starting to make sense. But honestly, I don't think they will serve Felix in the way he wants because he needs to be free from suspicion from the law, but at the same time, his enemies and those under his command need to know he did it, in order to fear and respect him. Taking out his ex doesn't really solve the reputation/work issue.

But maybe we can solve several problems at once, eh? Is there something he can do that he can pin on a rival gang, and make it look like they did it? That way Garrick's mother will go after them, and potentially take them out. At the same time, it might motivate the sons to join Felix's business, if they haven't already, and if Felix is/was considering making them his heirs. He can groom one or more of them to take over, but the truth behind the hit can give you options in the future for drama, revenge, maybe even a rift between the brothers depending on how who feels about what.

Not sure about the specifics to suggest (like the how), since I don't know too much about the rivals. But maybe the accident happens in rival territory. Maybe there's gullible rookies willing to take a weird job for big money. Maybe costumes and fake identities are involved. Maybe there's someone else in a vulnerable spot who needs money and they do the hit and have to go into hiding. Etc. Etc.

I would have hime take his own life with something that made hime get suddenly very sick so it looked like he simply got ill and died or had an awful accident that killed hime.His health was declining so it would be something that somebody in that position might do if they were in decline and they could make out it was the ex-wife's actions that drove them to taking their life if they just ended it without making it look like anything else besides what it really was.

A very old way of getting rid of people you don't like happens when you use poison. It would have to be a very subtle poisoning and Felix could give the order to eliminate his ex and her lover by giving them poison when he gives them a party or something.

One doesn't have to use a gun to achieve your aims.

I do have a notable collection of various methods of death, including poisons, suicide knives, guillotines, bombs, and various automatic weapons. I like to think of myself as the 007 of my towns. "Licensed to kill.", but it has to be a very solid reason for the killing.

@phantomknight @TadOlsen @FranH
Thank you so much for your thoughts and input. I believe I have come up with a way forward which I like.
I can't believe I didn't think about the rivalry and how Felix could kill two birds with one stone. I will let you know when the plot plays out on my blog (I'm a couple months ahead of my playing at the moment).

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

How do you imagine the relationships the Veronaville Teens had with their deceased parents?

Juliette: based on cornyregans' headcanon, I imagine she had a good relationship with her mother, who supported her crush towards Romeo, so she's very heartbroken about it. Although I couldn't come up with ideas how here relationship was like with her father.
Hermia: becomes a moody teenager. Since she's also a Family Sim, I imagine she had a good bond with her mother too.
Tybalt: not sure how his relationship was like with his parents.

Any ideas for Romeo and Mercutio's type of relationships with their parents?

Inspiration source: https://cornyregans.tumblr.com/post...ville-tragedies

Okay, dilemma!!
Normally I let things happen with whatever random chance they have of happening in game. However, if I accidentally leave my game I paused and walk away, I exit without saving.
This time, I did it just as my Sim went on vacation. So, they travel to their new vacation house with their two dogs and apparently DIE!!! The dogs completed the vacation (maybe) and so the game saves with this Sim dead at the vacation home.

I can't just make it not have happened.

Options:
1. They died and they stay dead. Some accident occurred while they were on vacation. There were no witnesses. Very mysterious. (Could add a lot of drama - was it a simple accident? Was it murder? Will it cause political drama between the main hood and the vacation hood?)
2. They didn't "die," but are in a coma. Same mystery, with a chance for them to wake up (be resurrected) based on some criteria.
3. Nothing happened. Resurrect them, fix everything, continue as if it didn't actually occur.
Help please!!

I'd play it (#1 scenario) as if they did die, the family has to bring them home to bury them, and then someone investigates why they died while on vacation. It does happen that people die while away from home in all reality-you have to decide if the pixel was important to you in the game play and then act on what would happen if they did die-who would be affected, how old they were, etc.

It depends also on whether or not you want to follow the reality thing or just pretend it never even happened.

I'd play that one very differently depending on what was going on in the sims lives before they died. Were they a young, active and social sim in the beginning of their career? In that case they would probably just be resurrected and played as if nothing had happened. Were they approaching the elder stage and at or near the top of their career ladder with teenaged children who can probably take care of themselves? Then I might go for the coma option and put off a final decision until I see how the neighbourhood gets on without them. Were they an elder sim, not that socially active and with grown up children? I'd probably let them die and take as much drama from that option as I could.

I'd leave them dead. Some tragedy can spice up stories(everybody relax, Sims ain't real people, they are not alive, they are virtual dolls).

The only situation where I would resurrect them is if they have no family yet and so wouldn't be part of any family tree . That's the one thing I have with my Sims everybody must be immortalized by a place in the neighbourhood family tree.

Or what I also like to do is resurrect them, but with the personality reversed, or at least altered, had some fun with that in many of my past hoods :-)

Thank you for your input.
Even as I was writing the initial options, that they would stay dead seemed to make the most sense and I appreciate knowing that you agree with this.
It's hard and heart breaking, but tragedies happen.

Well of course I'm the infamous Simmer who's been playing for over nine years and never seen a Sim die. So I possibly feel a little different. If I had watched a Sim die and been unable to save them, then I think I might just reluctantly accept their death, as I have to accept Real Life deaths. I know people don't come back. But in this case, when I didn't see it, and know it would never have happened if I had been playing properly, I'd be very tempted to try to resurrect them (something I've never done), or more likely, restore from backup so there would be no memories of their deaths (except perhaps mine). What did you actually see? The Grim Reaper standing over their bodies? Or just a message to say they had died?

The only time I actually did leave my game running, my brilliant Sims (two Romance teens) looked after themselves with complete competence. One, who had a job, had gone to work several times, and therefore earned enough to pay to restock the fridge (which of course I had to tell them to do). In fact when I returned to the computer, it was about the same time of day as when I had left them, and the first thing I noticed was that some of their levels had dropped, and I wondered why. . . . And then I noticed that three days had past since I'd last seen them! In the event I only just got back to them in time, as their fridge was starting to run out of food, and there's no way they could restock it without my help. But all's well that ends well, and the incident left me with a much higher opinion of the Forster brothers.

Unfortunately, my most recent back up is too old for me to happily restore from. I should update again. With 36 households. I tend to do it every 12 or so, and I don't want to replay that many households.
Additionally, I honestly saw NOTHING. I paused my game with my Sim about to go on vacation. Turns out, I didn't pause it. When I picked up my computer, it's the household, but it's empty. No Sims live their. No dogs. Nothing. I was confused, and worried that my neighbourhood had imploded.
I went to the Vacation hood to see if somehow they had got stuck there, weirdly.
The niece of my Sim was listed as the property owner. That's when I figured out what happened. They went on vacation and died. The dogs returned to the main hood and were taken away by pet control. Hence the empty house.
Unlike you, Andrew, I embrace death as a part of my Sims lives. I don't try to be a cruel Watcher, but sometimes bad things happen. (BTW, I love that you take care of your Simmies - we just have different game play styles).
So they died, which was definitely an accident, but what derails one expected storyline creates another.

Well, it is a surprising twist, so build the story from there?

The biggest thing is probably that you want to adopt the dogs into a family again so they don't stay in adoptable pet limbo. Maybe the niece can adopt them?

If the niece has become the property owner, bring her into the story, and build it from there. She is the inheritor of the vacation property, perhaps she would buy the original house, and get the dogs out of rescue. All kinds of things you could do for the story.

I managed to save the dogs from the adoption pool. My Sims' best friend adopted them. His dog just died and he wasn't planning on getting another immediately, but these two were related to his, so it made a lot of sense. He also got most of the wealth from the house sale (he's going to use the money to support some good causes in the neighborhood).
Not sure what to do about the cousin who inherited the vacation property. It's not her style; but it was an important family property.

I would have the new owner of a vacation home decide to renovate it to more their style and keep it in the family.

Long story short, Vivian Cho tragically starved to death and her daughter Etsu was adopted by Timothy Riley. Timothy's biological daughter Sally is best friends with Sofia Baldwin, and by extension Etsu also became great friends with Sofia. Etsu wants to fall in love, meanwhile Sofia hasn't rolled the want to explicitly fall in love but she currently wants to go on a date and to sneak out with Etsu. Their turn-ons match each other, Etsu is turned on by black hair and make-up while Sofia is turned on by make-up and higher education (well, this one doesn't technically match yet but Etsu will be attending college in the near future) so they have chemistry.

The thing is, they are all teens but there's supposed to be an age gap. Sofia Baldwin is 3 days older than Sally Riley, who in turn is 1 day older than Etsu. These ages don't quite match with the wiki but it might've been just because of when I actually triggered each birthday. Anyway, the point is Sofia is meant to be older than Sally, who in turn is meant to be older than Etsu. Sofia is scheduled to leave for university this rotation, and since I'm playing 2 days per university year, Etsu is scheduled to go to university two rotations from now when Sofia is starting her 3rd year. This would theoretically make Sofia 2 years older than Etsu, though I think 3 is more fitting with their original ages to account for the birthdays not completely lining up - just assume Sofia was held back a year for some reason. Anyway, what we essentially have is a 17 year old and a 14 year old. Do I wait before exploring their romance? Wait until they are both at university? Until Sofia starts her 2nd year? Do I simply not care and say they are all teens and so it doesn't matter?