My simself died in an asylum dancing around a tree fire. It was hard to watch.

My teen just became an overachiever and his dad had a want for his brother to become one and his mom didn't have a want at all. It really annoyed me.

And a little before that their dad was stargazing, and he had wants to maximize the logic skill and the science hobby. He also had one to see a wolf, so what happens? A wolf shows up and his other two wants change to wolf-related things. He hasn't wanted to maximize the logic skill since.

And dude, what the heck? Why are you making out with the neighbor?!

The guests have just left Dougal and Mandy's wedding party. Even with freewill off, with four expectant mothers (all suffering morning sickness!), getting all 18 Sims into position was a nightmare - except for Hamish, he was very co-operative!

Now I'm going for a lie down - I think I've deserved it!

The Downtown Capps had varying reactions to Regan having become a vampire at the courthouse. Regan was fine with it and saw it as being a good way to dominate the family. Cornwall was ambivalent about it, both wanting and fearing her cured. Kent, surprisingly, was the one who wanted her back to human at once, but nobody listened to him. They might have had he not had to hustle off to work as a teacher's aid, while Regan and Cornwall tried out her enhanced body in bed, shielded from the morning sun by layers of newspaper over the windows. Trashy, but they couldn't really afford curtains or any nice-looking UV-blocking film... They had just enough time for a quick WooHoo and a little lying in each other's arms before they too had to head to work. Cornwall was worried about Regan and sunlight, but she pointed out that A. there's not a lot of sunlight in the depths she was working at, and B. the massive old-fashioned diving suit that is the uniform of deep sea excavators would keep what there is from harming her. Off they went, leaving Maxx, Alegra, and Mistress Quickly on guard to harass Lucy Hanby into doing her job properly when she showed up to clean the house.

Kent and Cornwall both came back with promotions, to substitute teacher and starter respectively. The promotion bonuses came in handy, since there had been little left after Lucy left with her pay. Kent had heard talk about werewolves at work and was busy thinking about them, and stood on the front porch with Maxx to think about them as he petted the dog. Along came Lucy to kick over the bin again about that one stupid pee-puddle she cleaned up days ago...and she got chased by Maxx as soon as the bin hit the sidewalk. That dog's not all useless! Kent had barely stopped laughing and picked up the bin and trash when he saw sulky Gavin Newson stomping down the sidewalk. He didn't quite understand what the boy was rambling about when he asked why he was so cross -- something about ghosts and too many kids around -- but he talked with him until Gaving threw a pretty random tantrum in the middle of the sidewalk. Kent was disconcerted, and walked inside to get away from the teen...and walked in on his sister pleasuring her husband in the living room. His outburst of shock brought in Gavin, who laughed and started cheering Regan on. Kent gave the kid a long look, then shrugged and figured he couldn't escape unseen anyway. He sat down and tried to enjoy the show.

Regan has an interesting idea of vampire wiles -- as soon as she was done with Cornwall, she got up and, still nude, asked Gavin to do the gardening. Of course he agreed, but his bad mood combined with Maxx's idea of help soon had him back inside throwing yet more tantrums. Alegra grew up into a pug-nosed Persian. Kent invited over Erin Beaker for dinner after it got dark, not knowing of her transformations but wanting to find out how the spectacle at the courthouse had affected her. Erin came shambling over and was pleased that her startlingly different physiology made people not want to talk about her being fired much. Cornwall wanted another promotion, and decided to take advantage of what he'd heard about werewolf strength and a SimVac Regan had liberated from work. Kent was busily looking through the backyard telescope at the time, and continued to do so as Regan used a Weathernaught she'd also acquired to make it rain. A clear, balmy night just didn't cut it for the dramatic way she felt right now...and getting her spying, snooping brother soaked added to the pleasure.

By the time Cornwall had all the body and charisma skills he needed, he wanted to be a vampire himself. And a werewolf. But he was afraid of both...but as he wanted nothing else easy to achieve, and Regan was hungry, he joined her in vampirism. Let's hope he can play indoors from now on... Kent was upset at both the way Cornwall had used Erin and the way Regan and Cornwall were discussing how they'd be vampire rulers of Veronaville -- and SimCity -- as they hogged the bathroom by sharing a bath. He really wanted his sister back to human now... Little did he know that she still hadn't given up on having a baby, and when she finds she can't as a vampire, she'll likely want to become human again to try again.

~

While Monica Bratford and Sanjay ate waffles in front of a cooking show, Priya Ramaswami took Goneril Capp out of the SimCity Asylum as they went to Fresh Rush Grocery to buy her some cheap new clothes to go home in. She outright refused to look at the red dragon dress she'd arrived in, saying Priya could have it and that belonged to some other her, so Priya and her walked to the store together and hit the clothing racks. Goneril's choices were dubious, but Priya and her together worked out a sort-of-pretty outfit composed of a magenta-and-black striped dress with a black hoodie over it to cover the neckline that Goneril objected to. She let Priya braid her hair, and tried to put some makeup on, but...the effect was still slightly deranged. As was she, as she kept trying to talk to townies about grilled cheese... After a few disappointments and some dirty looks from Buzz Grunt, she asked Priya to if they could go to her church in Pleasantview. She wanted to see the place again, and with money so tight, it might be hard to get there once she was home...

Priya thought it might be helpful, so they headed to the train station and thence to Pleasantview. It actually was helpful, as they met Guy Wrightly, who was nice enough to listen to a lot of talk about cheese. Goneril and Guy actually got to like each other, especially as they booed a shop-clerk who showed up to play the piano badly. Then Goneril influenced Priya to make grilled cheese, made some herself (the kitchen there has two stoves), and a cheese feast was had! Needless to say, Goneril was entirely pleased with herself when they left, and Priya was bored and wanted a party. She threw a going-away party for Goneril when they got back to the asylum, which didn't go well. Stella Roth, Cleo Shikibu, Patricia Wan, and Mag GilsCarbo were invited, the first three because they'd said and written nice things about the asylum, the last because Priya thought Goneril and Mag had gotten along well at Consort's funeral. (Goneril was too strung-out at the time to know who or what she was talking to, and Mag was trying to be gracious to the nuttiest of Juliette's nutty aunts.) Goneril was tired out from too much cheese and slept through most of her party, while Monica, angry that she was here with no end in sight, picked a fight with Mag about him looking ridiculous in his black outfit and heavy makeup in this lovely weather. The party was a snoozer, and Goneril only livened it up by stealing the newspaper she'd moved out with when she got into her taxi. (Yes, it stayed in her hand the whole time.)

Sanjay was relieved to see a patient actually leave cured, and threw another party to celebrate. This one actually went well, thanks to Monica's obsession with cooking shows (part of her war with Goneril after Goneril got hooked on cheese) having taught her how to prepare chip platters -- as well as Sanjay having invited a varied crowd of financial backers, as well as a few townies who were walking by. A thunderstorm started late at night and set a tree on fire twice, scaring Sanjay into wetting himself once, but all recovered from the scares with no serious harm. Checo and Tessa Ramirez were at the party (I think Tessa will grow to be very interested in the workings of the mind), and Checo said he'd open his shop late if Sanjay wanted to bring Monica out into the world a bit. Sanjay agreed, so after the party ended, he drove Priya and Monica to Bluewater Village. The furniture store was boring to everyone, though Sanjay was interested in watching Escalus Prince and Dora Ottomas making faces about the price of everything. As it got light, they went to Point Blue Public Beach, with Priya and Sanjay feeling that a little nature would do Monica good and that she wasn't really going to hurt herself or attempt escape.

At first, the only one of them interested in the beach was Priya, who wanted to look for seashells as soon as they got there. She and Sanjay had used the asylum's Energizer during the parties, so they weren't too tired, but Monica was tired, felt like the world was greyed-out, and headed for the tent to sleep and ignore the fine day. Relieved of their charge, Sanjay asked Priya on a date, and she agreed. Their mechanical-feeling experimentation finaly payed off, as after tickling and pillow-fighting, they finally both wanted to make out at the same time -- and then have WooHoo with each other and have WooHoo in a car. Off they skipped back to the road to engage in a repeating cycle of WooHoo and making out in the car. Eventually they were both tired, and left Monica to shower unattended as they crawled into the tent to sleep.

Monica tried to do all the beach things, even building a well-constructed sandcastle -- but she was listless about it. Then she saw High Good Witch Emily MacAuley playing with her cat by the road, and she was struck by her. She walked up to give her a high five, asked her if she liked what she saw, and found she did. Sarah was nowhere near, and Monica was lonely -- so she charmed Emily, asked her on a date, and discovered that she could actually instruct the High Witch in matters of cooking! All too soon, the date ended OK and Sanjay and Priya woke up to kiss at the end of their dream date, but at least she had a taste of happiness.

Back in darkness at the asylum, Monica joined the fad of wanting to hear Erin Beaker howl and wanting to become a vampire. She got permission to invite Erin over, but had to eat the rest of the chips and go to bed without getting either of her desires (because this is my personal version of the asylum idea and so the only actions I tell asylum patients to do are those they explicitly want -- and I forsake control entirely if they're in red motives and let them fend for themselves until their physical state improves). Erin wandered into the sitting room and found Sanjay and Priya having WooHoo in a chair; she laughed and scampered off to splash in puddles, while their WooHoo led to a lullaby. Well, this should be interesting...

Singles: The four roommates bought a nice house together (the Hacienda one - redone). They agreed that the house should be just for singles and if any of them married, they would need to move out. Everyone agreed and settled into their jobs and meeting people. Kristen started dating the woman who runs the rehab and functions as the town social worker and therapist. Chloe is playing the field dating different men. Erin wants to be a rock star and she met Marco at work and they are dating. Lola started dating Juan Raemon and accidentally got pregnant. Since he was a family sim and she was thinking about her biological clock ticking, they decided to get married and have the baby (which ended up to be babies - Nebula and Nova). So they moved into a nice house together and had a wedding at home. This is where the trouble started. The wedding was beautiful and the couple was happy after the ceremony.


Then they noticed that Erin and her rock star boyfriend showed up like this. Chloe was very pissed off that Erin wore such an inappropriate dress to her sister's wedding. Which led to a huge fight. The guests reacted in different ways. Marco (Erin's boyfriend) was yelling 'Kick her butt, Erin!' while Candace (Kristen's girlfriend) was appalled at such behavior.


After the fight, Marco cornered Chloe by the stairs and said 'Don't you ever pick on my girlfriend again' and then 'Do you hear me??'. Chloe was taken aback at being threatened by a man.


All this excitement exhausted Lola (who was pregnant again) and she went to bed. Unfortunately, this was about the time that the babies needed to age up and she was the lucky one picked for that job. So she kept getting out of bed repeatedly to drag herself upstairs and hold the baby while she waited. Well, they did eventually age up, but by that time she was so tired and stressed that she had a miscarriage. What an awful ending to such a horrible wedding!! Hopefully the marriage can only get better from here.

Instead of starting a new thread..... This is what's happening in my game ( BTW, I need to read up on picture taking because all I get are tiny piccies and cannot enlarge them for this forum without pixellation overload ) : I am retiring my medieval hood because it takes SO MUCH CC to keep it realistic. Holy crap.

With my Apocalypse hood, I thought I had alot of CC---but nothing like the CC needed to run a realistic medieval hood.

One thing I've learned from this game--- is NEVER delete a hood that you've put months of work into. Instead, just save it and recycle if needed.
I created 300 playables and 550 townies/downtownies for this neighborhood alone ; along with 2 shopping hoods and 2 downtown hoods.

I might just remove the CC from my medieval hood and change it into a "Mad Max"-style Apocalypse scenario.
MmmuuwwaaaHAHAHAHA !!!!!
Prepare for carnage... my lords and ladies !!!!!

A LOT has happened at the DeBateau penthouse in Belladonna Cove this rotation.

The rotation started off with model and gold-digger extraordinaire, Murphy DeBateau, who is currently pregnant. Not by her husband, Armand, but by his best friend, Geoff Rutherford. Armand was none the wiser and completely overjoyed by the idea of having another child in the house. Murphy just prayed that the baby would look like her. She didn't want to risk losing her husband. . .'s money.

While that was going on Tara continued to grow closer with her boyfriend, Fricorith Tricou. She was finding herself falling more and more in love with him. And she knew he loved her, as well. So one night she went to his apartment. She led him to his bedroom where she professed her love for him. He simply gave her that smoldering smile that always curled her toes and told her he knew she did. And that he loved her, too. That he had since that day he moved into the building and saw her for the first time.

Tara knew then and there that this would be the guy she was going to spend the rest of her life with. And there, in his bedroom, they shared their first woohoo. She woke up around three that morning and snuck back to her place after sharing a sweet kiss with her love.

She met up with former housekeeper/surrogate mother, Rose Tillson, for lunch at the newly renovated One-Twenty-Five Café later that day. They caught up on old times and she ended up telling Rose what had happened between herself and Fricorith. Rose knew how much she loved the young man and she, herself, though Fricorith was a great kid. But she warned Tara not to rush into these things. That they had all the time in the world. Tara confided that though she knew that was probably true, she couldn't help but fear that she could lose him. He had already died once, after all. Rose simply hugged the girl and told her to just enjoy the moments they had together.

The next day a big surprise came: Murphy went into labor! Armand, Tara and even a few of the neighbors were present for the arrival of Murphy's daughter, Rodeo (named after Rodeo Drive, the famous and EXPENSIVE shopping district in Beverly Hills. As if Murphy would name her daughter anything else. (I'm thinking that if Murphy has another little girl she'll name her Melrose)).

To Murphy's absolute horror little Rodeo resembled her real father quite a bit with her red hair. She feared Armand would realize what had happened and throw her out on her ear. Thankfully the businessman seemed oblivious. The red hair simply reminded him of when Tara was little and he instantly became smitten with the little bundle of joy. Tara, too, was in awe of her new little sister and both father and daughter doted over the baby constantly.

It wasn't long before Murphy got her body back into shape. With that she felt a familiar itch and gave a call to Geoff, inviting him over after Armand went to work. He soon showed up and she quickly led him to the bedroom to catch up on old times. Afterwards, while Murphy had a little catnap, Geoff wandered into the nursery and took in the sight of his daughter. Without a word he picked the baby up and carried her into the bedroom. "Is she mine?" he asked as he handed the baby over to Murphy. She simply gave him a look and replied carefully, "She's be a DeBateau. That's all you need to worry about."

Whatever else she was going to say died on her lips as Tara came home from school. She bounding into the room, intent on seeing the baby, and froze at the sight that greeted her. The butler, Derek Knight, quickly whisked the baby into the other room as step-mother and step-daughter began screaming at one another. It soon led to Murphy poking Tara. Vile names were exchanged and threats were tossed back and forth.

Then things got worse: Armand came home from work. He was gobsmacked to see her wife with his best friend and his daughter in tears. To make matters worse, Geoff just grinned and stepped out into the living room to watch television, as though there was nothing wrong. That's when Armand lost it. He attacked his former best friend, now turned bitter enemy. Murphy showed her true colors by cheering Geoff on. But it was all for not. Armand wiped the floor with him and the sent the guy packing.

He then turned his anger onto his wife, ordering her out of his house and life forever. Murphy was devastated, all her carefully laid plans now going up in smoke. She begged and pleaded with him. "What about our daughter? We have a child to think about!" It was then that everything clicked. Armand coldly told her he wanted a paternity test. Murphy knew she was beat and sadly told him she would collect HER daughter and leave immediately.

Armand was heartbroken, losing the woman he had only hours ago loved and now the daughter who was really not his own. That was the part that really killed him. His conscious and good heart outweighed his anger and he wrote her a check for §30,000 so that the baby could be cared for properly. Then, with that, Murphy and Rodeo were gone from his life.

While Tara was devastated to lose a sister, she was thrilled that the gold-digger was finally out of their lives. Now that Armand was free from Murphy's hold maybe he would see what was right in front of his eyes: A good, loving woman waiting in the wings. Rose, who had befriended Tara and Armand, not because they were rich, but because she genuinely cared about them. She knew Rose was in love with her dad, even though the housekeeper had always tried to hide it, and she vowed to do whatever she could to get her father and surrogate mother together. As they should be.

Here are a few pics from this rotation.

Hahahahahahahaha! There has to be worse ways to go

I wandered away from Sims 2 for a time. Since it was in the news, I reckoned I'd better learn to play Minecraft. Well, now I can, and that's done. I returned to Riverblossom Hills, where I am never attacked by monsters.

The old familiar faces greeted me, but I had changed. For a start, I am in a Jane Austen book club now, so my residents had to meet a family from the novel 'Persuasion': into Kellynch Hall moved Sir Walter Elliot and his two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne. It's hard to furnish an 1815 house, in a game that must include telephones and computers, and with an owner who insists he wants a car; but I managed it. My downloads folder contains very few Empire Line dresses, and even fewer knee breeches, but I managed to to have the family decently turned out. Elizabeth is tending her flower garden, Anne is practising piano, and Sir Walter is socialising. Already he knows most of the neighborhood - well that section of society that is worth knowing. He is a roaring snob.

I'm starting to wonder if one or more townies might have the flu. Over in my medieval hood I have been playing the Chandler family, which is a play on Candle since they make and sell candles in their home businesses. So far this rotation he has caught the flu and got well, she has caught the flu (not off him I kept him away) and got better and he has caught the flu and got better. It was winter and they did not go anywhere but work hard at their home business and take care of their toddler. There was however a constant stream of townies and playables buying candles. As far as I know, no one else was sick. Of course maybe one of them is although I saw no signs of it.

So, I decided to play Desiderata Valley. One family that I've had quite the trip with is the Bell family. Everything is starting out great. Hannah and Sharon got promotions, and Issac was well on the way to a promotion. One day, every family member was away, either at school or work. Daniel gets home, but I realized that an adult wouldn't be back until 9 p.m. I got that warning that he shouldn't be left alone in the house, and I shrug it off. I get that all the time and I've been safe since. Well, as Daniel was taking a bath, with about an hour before Sharon would get home, the social worker arrived! Mind you, I've only had the social worker arrive only one other time during my entire time playing this game. Thinking about the whole "wonderfully well" story that the Bell family came with, I thought it'd be great to kind of use this as a part of their story, that this once wonderfully well family is currently hitting some hard times. I have Sharon move out, her reasoning being that she needed to give her sister and her brother in law some time alone. Left with a big house, Issac and Hannah move into a smaller home. Devastated by the loss of their son, they adopt a dog, naming him Daniel after their child. After some time, and with their biological clocks ticking, Issac and Hannah try for a baby. Hannah due to her age was having fertility issues, so she started to use fertility treatments to up her chance of conceiving . After two days of trying, Hannah finds out she's pregnant. Unfortunately, Hannah had a spontaneous miscarriage within her first trimester. For days, Hannah was depressed, having nightmares of her miscarriage and her dear son Daniel, wondering where he could be. After about 4 days, Hannah and Issac try again, with the help of fertility treatments. Hannah got pregnant again, but her needs were dropping fast, putting her at risk for another miscarriage. After lots of rest and little housework. She gave birth to Natalie, a bouncing baby girl. Since then, all has been well again and Natalie is now a child, completely unaware that she has an older brother out there somewhere. Will Natalie meet Daniel? How will Daniel adjust to being in foster care?

I’m still in Belladonna Cove and onto the next sim in my rotation: the former Mrs. Armand DeBateau, Murphy Cartier. She and her daughter, Rodeo, had just moved into a little apartment and Murphy was busy getting the place in order and taking care of her daughter. She had to admit the §30,000 check from Armand had helped her a great deal.

Something really surprised her, as well. She was beginning to see her daughter not as a means to hang on to Armand, but HER child. Her flesh and blood. And she realized just how much she loved the little girl. More than life itself. She found herself absolutely devoted to the baby, taking care of her tirelessly. She even thought about quitting her job as a swimsuit model just so she could spend more time with her precious little girl. Of course she talked herself out of it. Armand’s money would only last them so long. And besides, she did love earning that very nice paycheck of hers.

It wasn’t long before it was Rodeo’s birthday. Murphy couldn’t help but feel a little sad. Here she had assumed that her daughter’s first birthday would be spent in the penthouse, surrounded by family and friends. A grand event indeed. Instead, it was just mother and daughter.

But Murphy pushed that sadness aside. This was a big event after all. She brought the baby over to the cake and blew out the candles. Soon Rodeo turned from infant to toddler! She gave her precious a much needed makeover and soon it was time for Rodeo to open her presents. Murphy had gone all out for her angel.

She continued to work on her career, but not leaving the house hurt her chance at making contacts and that elusive promotion remained out of her reach. She pushed those thoughts aside, though, deciding to give Geoff a call and invite him over.

She figured if she couldn’t have Armand, she could at least settle for Geoff. He had quite a bit of money, himself, and they did have chemistry. Besides, he was Rodeo’s father and the baby had a right to know him.

Geoff showed up a short time later, the pair kissing passionately upon greeting. Murphy led him into the living room and over to his daughter, anxious to see how the meeting would go. Not well, unfortunately. Though Rodeo had initiated contact with her father, Geoff didn’t appear all that interested. He had simply patted the toddler on the head and both had come away from the experience with negative emotions.

Murphy didn’t let that deter her, though. Perhaps they just needed more time. So she stepped up her plan, leading him up to her room where they woohooed. Though Geoff wanted Murphy to stay in bed she left his side, going back down to see to Rodeo. Geoff, feeling put out, left with a simple "Bye.”

Murphy shoved the incident aside and spent the next day working on teaching Rodeo her toddler skills. She actually found herself as excited to teach as her daughter seemed to be to learn. Murphy couldn’t have felt more proud when her little genius ended up learning all of her skills in one day. Her daughter was not only beautiful, but the kid had brains. Murphy vowed then and there to do whatever she could to make sure Rodeo got the very best out of life.


Here are some pics from the Cartier rotation.

I am finding I would rather go through and look at your pictures than read what your sims have done. Then if I see pic and wonder what is up with that I want to read your posts.

My sims are now at the point of overpopulation. Many graduates waiting to be romanced. More males than females these days in my game. Should I start a polygamy with three husbands to a wife?

Personally, I would definitely go for it.


As for my game, I am uninstalling and reinstalling all of it in hopes of fixing multiple items that stopped showing up correctly in the game such as the bone phone, mp3 player, certain wallpapers, and some showers. Looking back though, it seems like all my trouble was from the University EP....Oh well.

You can probably just use the object file off your uni disk rather then a full reinstall.

I like seeing pictures, I'm just not into reading a wall of text. I only read short paragraphs.

The candle makers daughter is called Emma and now finally (they were somehow 2 rotations behind) after two rotations they are expecting again. I may hit random and see how many babies we get, although I've only ever had triplets once. Poor Dad got the flu yet again and got well again. Someone coming into the shop is giving him the flu.

If this is directed at me, I'm sorry if my "What's Happening Nows" are boring you (and possibly others). I've really enjoyed doing them, but I don't want to bore anyone with them so I'll stop posting them.

Sorry to everyone.

Don't be ridiculous. I do wall of text, too, and people read me. Just not everybody. Nobody reads everything. You post away. This is the place for sharing. More people are reading it than you think.

Sorry you feel that way, lilorchid ; I enjoy reading on this site--more than posting. Now, MY posts are really silly because I don't invest enough time in sims2, although my husband says I do it all the time after work !
I like your posts because I'm familiar with the characters in the stories-- unlike alot of other games I've played.

I've read some of your posts and like them. You don't need to apologize or stop posting if you like writing out longer posts. If someone else doesn't want to read a long post, they can skip it. Or they can read a couple of paragraphs. Or they can just look at the pictures and then skim the text. It's not a big deal. It's not like there's a "right" way to participate in the thread (well, as long as you aren't posting 30 pics that aren't hidden by spoilers). If you're having fun writing out your posts, then you should keep doing it.

Everyone likes something different, don't stop posting. I wasn't telling anyone what to post only that I personalty don't read large walls of text, but that doesn't mean many others are not reading and prefer to read rather than look at pictures. You can't please all the people all the time which is why you need to please yourself.

In my game the local resturant had the Reporter visit.
The reporter doesn't like their garage, had food spilled on her, had the swing blocked by the people living there talking and the only thing she liked was the Chicken pie that was taken from her as she just started eating it.

Can't wait to see the review

I wish we could see an actual review, that would be cool. I can imagine yours says it was the worst restaurant hes ever visited!

Mag GilsCarbo and his Half-Brothers really needed to study, but only Mag was interested -- and that only because the charisma he'd need to graduate could be acquired by practising romance at a mirror. Considering that all three brothers were growing increasingly infatuated with Gretchen the ill-dressed dormie, he felt he needed to hone his skills. Blake and Lee preferred dressing alike and pillow-fighting in the yard -- and in the case of Blake, finally getting into Goldenrod House. In the process of doing the latter, he caused Lee to get the mysterious illness from the Greek visitors, but it wasn't noticed as anything worse than Mag's cold and Blake's flu.

The three of them spent most of the time traipsing around campus, often accompanied by Gretchen. When they went to the park to play kicky bag and throw footballs around, Lee was able to get Gretchen to slow dance with him when Mag was distracted by the problem of which gender-segregated toilets he'd be more welcome in. After Mag finally settled on toughing it out in the men's toilets (which did match his pronouns, if not his attire), he was very annoyed to emerge to find the girl he'd discovered the inner beauty of dancing with his brother. Off he headed to the gym, with the others scampering after and wondering why he was in such an unusual hurry.

At the gym, Mag tried to get that one last charisma point at the upstairs mirrors, while Blake took to the hot tub yet again. Lee wanted to fall in love, and devoted himself entirely to the pursuit of Gretchen. He did take a dip in the pool, but only so he could then take a set of wet, bare-chested beefcake photos in the photobooth that had recently been installed on the first floor. Gretchen was impressed.

Despite knowing he needed charisma, Mag preferred messing around on the exercise machines and the new electro-dance sphere on the third-floor deck to using the mirror. It was hard to stay focused on school when he didn't have anyone to look after but his brothers... Equally unfocused, Blake cared for nothing but soaking in the hot tub, eating cafeteria pancakes, dancing, and making friends with a Secret Society guy named Glen Buckingham, while Lee was caught up in coy flirtation with Gretchen, even though he didn't feel well at all.

By the time they got home, all three were tired, and all went to bed after a quick dinner. It hit the spot -- by morning they were all recovered from their various illnesses! Lee invited Gretchen over again, and while his brothers were in class, asked her if she wanted to share a bath with him... She agreed, and as they saw each other naked, laughed nervously, and then realized they had the same hairstyle, they fell in love. Mag returned home wanting a shower, walked in on them washing each other's feet, and realized that he had lost. He left to lie on his bed and daydream, while Lee asked Gretchen to go steady with him as soon as they got out of the bath. He wanted to get engaged to her!

Blake, confronted with Lee getting the girl they were all at least half in love with, decided to swear off women entirely. Being bisexual in inclination with only a slight preference for females, he called his new friend Glen and asked him if he'd date him. Glen was delighted by the question, and hurried over. They wanted to go out to eat, but it was too close to finals, so Blake threw a sports party instead. Romeo Monty (Capp) and Max Flexor eyed each other dubiously over waffles, Mag tried to inform Romeo that this might be a good time to get Juliette and get out of Veronaville, Gretchen played retro games on the antiquated computer Blake had restored, and Blake and Glen tickled each other and nearly drove Mag out of his mind by playing catch in the house, knocking Mag's fedora askew several times. Then Lee came home from class...and moments later, it was time to rush off to finals. The party continued, and was still going on when the brothers returned. Nobody had passed -- Lee had a D, no grant, and academic probation, while Mag and Blake had been expelled. (Still, I'll give them credit for making it to senior and junior, since college is hard in my game.) Mag's worst fear was what clothes he was going to have to leave in, but it wasn't too bad -- tight white jeans and a midriff-showing cowboy shirt were nowhere near as comfortable or elegant as his black dresses and skirts, but at least they weren't depressingly gender-conforming. He'd have new clothes soon enough, anyway...

Lee was despondent about being left alone at school, and cheerleader Jenna Baena didn't help -- as the party wound down a snoozer, she brought up the topic of Mag and Blake's expulsion, then jumped up to cheer on Lee's sobbing about the matter. Heartless much?

Irwin Clark, a young boy who loved reading a lot, sat down and wrote his first novel. He got someone to post it for him and waited patiently by the phone. Finally it rang, he answered and got the news that his novel had sold. He got $12,508 for it. Not bad for a kid's first try at writing. (: