What's happening? Quite a bit of "dammit, Puck!"

I sent a few of my Uni kids on holiday. They'd been there for about 10 minutes, and Puck already knew how to do the local greeting . I didn't even *see* anyone greet him. Then he learned how to ninja. The others haven't even unpacked their suitcases yet... I... can't... keep up.

I aged down my Self Sim's husband from elder because I don't want him to die before me. Horrid.

When I am really too tired to bother with beloved sims, seeing to their every need and want, I slip into the tower of Orthanc, just the other side of a mighty range of mountains in Pleasantview. You haven't noticed the mountains? You surprise me.

Orthanc contains four sims that I really detest, with not one Niceness point between the four of them. Saruman the White is a blackhearted elder wizard; Grima Wormtongue is a miserable creep; Grishnak Orc and Snaga Orc are both snarling werewolves. They are all criminals. Since I do not care what becomes of them, I sit back and watch them, only interfering for the sake of mischief, such as making the orcs love each other. On free will they do that all over the tower - in the hot tub, on the sofa, in bed. Saruman made a couple of friends by engaging sims in long games of chess. One of those friends, a genial natural scientist called Tom Bombadil, gave Saruman his carnivorous cowplant, since Tom hated the creature. Saruman greets passers-by, and then leaves them to explore the cowplant enclosure. He has milked the cowplant four times, and just gets younger and younger.

They all get on remarkably well without my help. The two orcs have not one Neatness point between them, and yet one of them always volunteers to clear up after a meal. On free will any of the family may sit down at the piano, and play to the point of exhaustion. They are all getting quite creative. As con men, two of them have sold time shares and netted eight thousand simoleons each time, so the family is getting quite wealthy.

Since I still don't care what becomes of them, I give them things I've never used before, by way of experiment. There are two swords mounted on the castle wall, and the orcs have practised fencing with them. I can't see that fencing serves any useful purpose, except to entertain me. Saruman spun a wish to buy a massage table, and they take turns to give each other Swedish massages. For some reason this always attracts the attention of one of the ghosts who moan around the cellar. More entertainment for a tired player!

Accidentally (well, more like not concentrating) deleted a folder with a bunch of lots. I thought they were backed up; turns out that was the backup. Trying to make a vacation hood for my Sims, using lots from the building competition a while back. I am not sure I am good at having two game folders

Self Sim had her twins. Felisha and Jaymz. I'm pretty happy about that

Welp Tinypic won't let me upload pics so I made myself a Simblr. First one! And under the spoiler is a link to a pic of my Self Sim and her hubby.

I've managed to reach a point where all of Strangetown is related to each other, either by blood or by marriage. That doesn't include bin sims or (most of) the sims from La Fiesta Tech, since I don't play them (yet).
Not many marriages recently, but there have been some births, many birthdays, and a death. By the looks of it, there'll be a few more deaths in the near future as well.
Family tree, for those interested: http://www.familyecho.com/?p=E8MXO&...931267774614732

Woah...

Same here, hon. I can click one portrait in the Family Tree and make my way around the entire town. Strangetown rocks

Nothing much happened, I've been deciding which aspirations Rosaline and Tamora Summerdream (Hermia and Puck's twin daughters) are going to have - even though they're toddlers still. Today has mostly been focusing on writing bios because I haven't really been in the right mood to play Sims. I've decided that Rosaline will inherit the Summerdream family's magic, whereas Tamora will be a normal person. The story shall be that while Rosaline becomes this amazing witch, with this beautiful family - she always wished she could move out of Veronaville (one of the rules is 'no magic outside of Veronaville') - while her sister Tamora has moved to Downtown to try and find a vampire willing to bite her, to make her feel 'special' like her sister. Deep down inside, they both wish they could swap lives.

Over in the Capp household, I've been trying to get Ariel's aspiration up to green. Tried to get her to go on a date with her husband - nope. As soon as the date started, he ran off to work leaving her home alone with the toddlers (her son, Rebeck and her Niece Juno). Eventually though, she painted enough paintings to earn whatever amount of money she was trying to make, I had her apply for scholarships - she got 4! and off to University she went. As the Capp heiress it's important that she's fully educated, however right now the stress of knowing that all her other siblings have produced daughters, and she only has a son (who can obviously not become heir because he's male) is really weighing heavily on her shoulders.

To add insult to injury, Tybalt just welcomed in twin daughters - Audrey and Cleopatra, with wife Lilith (Pleasant). Audrey surprised me by being the only blonde in the household, a gene that is quickly dying out in their strand of the Capp family. The only problem is now the house is too small. Lilith and Tybalt only intended on having two children (they have a son, Lucius who is currently midway through childhood). They live in a three bedroom house where both the bedrooms are quite small. I might have to turn the study room into bedroom or something (although that means one child gets a ridiculously big bedroom and the other two get tiny 3x3 rooms).

Mégane Havane, my homeless challenge sim, finally met her goal. She won 20.000 § doing breakdance in 28 simdays.
On the last day, the burglar tried to rob her. She kicked her ass and got her chair back.

As I sayd in other topics, my main hood is Pleasantview with attached Strangetown as Downtown, plus a couple more of families from other hoods.

Specter Family:
Today I finally managed to make Pollination Tech #9 to divorce from Jenny, after she found out about his affair with Olive (twho in my game is an adult evil witch). After getting engaged, I made them getting married in the community graveyard, with only Nervous and Ofelia as guest. It was a very intimate ceremony, and after that they went home. There because of the ACR, they tryed for a baby... and guess who got pregnant?
Meanwhile Ofelia is still dating Johnny, while Nervous fell in love with Cassandra Goth (teen in my game) and he's also getting very close to Gvaudoin Tricou; even though he wants to get steady, he refused her proposal.

Smith Family:
Jenny, after the painful break up, seems to get closer and closer to the grumpy Leod McGreggor: hey're already good friends, they spend lot of time together, playing chess and watching the TV, and Jenny likes his organic food a lot! Who knows what they're gonna do now that she's single again.

Caliente Family:
Nina Caliente, after her sister marring Malcom Landgraab IV, is enjoying her house all for herself, and she gets good money making/selling flowers. Meanwhile, she keeps going on date with other sims; now, her range of dateable Sims is increasing 'cause I'm allowing her to date even married ones. Today she ended up woohooing with Kvornan Tricou, but I have some more unloyal husband in my mind... I know already who she'll marry in end, but I still want her to have fun.

Tricou Family (Senior):
Jennicor Tricou and John Smith just moved in an amazing factory-like house, but their basament hides a secret; he got very close to one of the Grand Vampires and, of course, he got bitten. At the same time, he befriend such a cute wolf that savaged him, making him my first (and only, I think) hybrid. Then he bit his daughter Jennail who will bite her husband and his son Fricorith very soon; Nylissit got savaged and she will eventually savage the rest of her family as well. I love the idea of the hybrid father, with one daughter as vampire and the other as werewolf! Jennicor became quite a good friend of Olive Smith and she asked her to be taught the Path of Darkness. She is still improving, but I have no doubts about her wickedness. Guess where are their hiding coffin and wizard stuff?

Meanwhile, a new Sim joyined the neighbohood as downtownie: Bonehilda! I change the appearance of a female Servo through SimPE and I have to admit she's really funny. I think she's gonna have an affair with Don Lothario.

Right now I'm taking care of my download folder and then I have to keep organizing the new graveyard; I still don't know which family I'm gonna play with, but I already have a page of plot goals that I wanna reach asap!

During the longest and loudest thunderstorm I've ever had in TS2, my tree managed to get hit by lightning three times. By the third time, however, the rain had stopped, so the fire kept going until it burned the tree down. Conveniently, two of my Sims were panicking right next to it and burning to death while their daughter casually strolled through the entire house to get to the phone and call the firefighters. It took two of them to extinguish the fire, but at least the Sims survived. One of them had already had a bad day, having been fired from a high-level job and almost dying from another fire from a burnt meal she cooked.

I finished off the summer rotation of my medieval neighbourhood.

The poorest sims in town are definitely the Quarrier family. They have six children, with the oldest a day or two from becoming a teen, and they barely manage to scrape by enough money to pay their taxes and rent each month. Lloyd and Quincy worked hard to try to make the money needed, but after paying everything, they ended up with a small loss for the summer. They had even paid the Travellers in ore instead of simoleans as they are trying to save enough cash to buy a bathtub. When not working, the family took some time to go fishing; between their catch and some honey from their hive, they got through the summer with enough food, but they don't have much left. Fortunately, Peter has a small patch of tomatoes that should be ready to harvest soon. The children spent most of their time playing with their cousins.

Kim Knight, Trent Traveller's mistress, spent most of the summer taking care of their toddler daughter. Trent came by almost every day to visit them, and he and Kim had a few dates. During their third date, Trisha walked onto the lot just as the two kissed. She slapped Trent and then walked off the lot. Trent didn't seem to notice, and rolled a want to woohoo with Kim. Kim ended up pregnant again, and despite the slap, it was a dream date. The baby is due in early fall.

At the Travellers, Trisha was furious with Trent but also had a want to become friends with him again. Trent was also angry, but not very much. He wanted to appreciate Trisha, which I took to mean apologize. By mid summer, the two had full relationship bars again. Then Trent rolled a want to kiss Kim. He called her for a date while Trisha was at work - Trisha is a law student. Mid date, Trisha got a promotion due to chance card. She didn't notice Trent making out with Kim, but he must have noticed her get home - Trent stopped rolling wants to flirt and make out with Kim, and started rolling wants to appreciate her and tickle her instead. He didn't roll another want to kiss Kim until Trisha was very distracted by splashing in a puddle. After the kiss, the date ended at dream date, and Trisha started autonomously chatting with Kim. They don't really like each other, and the conversation went badly so Trisha asked Kim to leave. Trent spent the rest of the summer reading, while Trisha spent hours talking to other sims. She's determined to have 30 best friends. Of their children, they have four still at home. Terrence, Tracy, and Travis are children, and Tandy is a toddler. Both parents taught the toddler skills to Tandy, and Trent taught Travis how to read. Terrence spent a bit of time each day fishing in the moat - it was a good place to wait for passersby. He's made friends with one of the girls in the orphanage at the abbey and with two of the blacksmith's children. Tracy and Travis fought over who got to use the piano first each morning, but Travis usually gave way to Tracy. Both have an intense love of music, but Travis likes to sing as much as he does to play the piano. Terrence aged to teen on the last day of summer - he's fortune/romance, and has a LTW to become the King's Companion (top show biz). As the Travellers are the highest ranking nobles in town, his LTW is reasonable, but with the king and his heirs in hiding, I'm not sure if he'll ever really be his companion.

With the end of summer, I moved the Travellers out of the castle so that I could bulldoze it and rebuild. The castle is a block of six lots, and they had been living in the north center lot, but I've decided to make that block a bit smaller and the NE and NW corner lots a bit wider. They've moved into the NE corner - their gate is at the center of the east wall. The NE lot has a gatehouse/garage and a house for nobles with a tower in the outer corner of the lot. The NW lot will be a mirror of the NE one, but the with the interior arranged a bit differently - it will be set aside for the royal family. The town hasn't got enough resources to build it yet, though. The north center lot now has a three story gatehouse and a great hall. It's a community lot, and is incomplete inside as more building stone and wood are needed. The great hall will have a restaurant and dance floor, and I'm not sure what will go in the gatehouse. The three southern lots that complete the castle don't have any construction yet. The two corners will be residential, but with only small gates in the outer wall, and the center will be a community lot with ornamental gardens.

Yesterday...

Found A Girl for my Warlock. Scored the top in a date. Turned her into Werewolf. Created an afair for her. The "warlock Dude" imprisoned her in a box for cheating. Gave birth. Killed her off with fire.

That's pretty much it.

This weekend it has been sims moving, marrying, divorcing, having Nooboos, fighting, and woohooing. My uberhood has been very busy. I'm happy that no one has died, though. The flu is going around in Belladonna Cove and Bluewater Village. It's not going to take long, until it spreads throughout the whole city.

To be fair, it was pretty easy considering about half of the starting sims are all one family. The only neighbourhood easier than that would be Veronaville, where all it takes is 2 marriages and boom, everyone's on the same family tree.
Now the fun part is seeing just how much I can tangle this family tree until I'm forced to introduce new genetics to the pool. I estimate 1-2 generations.

I thought I'd try to do a challenging scenario and gather all the Hart Siblings plus their spouses and children together for a big family holiday get together. Things went out of control fast as there are 6 siblings, add spouses and that's 12 adults, kids brought the count 20 sims in one house.

First, Harmony, the eldest was hostess and she caught the turkey on fire twice.

Then Melody's husband, Anton and Sonata's husband, Skyler started to get into a fight - I have no idea why. They weren't enemies before...I bet when I wasn't watching there was some unregulated flirting that drove jealousies high. Andante's wife and daughter looked on in horror or amusement.

At some point, Anton and Melody's son, Roderick started weeping in a room and Anton went to comfort him (Didn't know adult sims could do this with their kids! totally autonomous!). Maybe Roderick was upset about the fighting.

Finally, Santa freaking came but you know, switched between saying 'Ho-Ho-Ho!" and wizzing in the bathroom all night.

Just about done with my college rotation. Noah Robinson and Adam Williams II are in one dorm while Laura Ari and Sean Morgan are in another. Laura and Adam are both in the cult so its up to them to try and recruit people during college. I'll need to come up with some type of formula to see if they actually join though because making friends is easy so I don't want that to be the only way for them to get in. I've got a few woman lined up but I'll need to look for men too.

Hollis:

It seems like I've just switched over to Hollis for the time being. I feel like things in Harlow are a bit out of control with the sheer volume of sims and families and I wish I'd been slower about adding so many playables! In Hollis, it's more my speed with less than 10 families to play, all of whom are happily running the local businesses.

Mallisa Green welcomed a baby boy called Patrick Tellerman Jr. - that was originally a baby girl called Patricia, but I fudged things when editing her surname and accidentally named her Tellerman Tellerman. I couldn't fix it in-game, so I quit without saving. In the end it worked out - I always seem to get too many baby girls to start with.

My first married couple (oops!) the Cox family, welcomed a son called Jaxon, and Marylena Hamilton made it to the top of the Medical Career and got pregnant with her second child, so little Nina will have a younger sibling. Marylena and Joe finally rolled the right wants and got married in their back garden as no one was running the church yet. I then solved that problem by creating the Dontaes, Bob and his 18-year-old daughter Chrisha.

Gian Barrucciolo (Goopy Gilscarbo) moved in with his other lover Sandy Bruty, and sure enough baby chimes were the result. Sandy's first sproglet will be half sibling to the Fancey twins.

Melissa Fancey and her now toddler-age twin daughters moved into a new building that houses both them and their Deli. Poor Melissa has almost no time (and less money) to make the foods that the neighbourhood loves with two squalling babies on her hands, but she's almost finished stocking her little decrachill. She makes creole/cajun food for the most part, cornbread, gumbo and jambalaya - modeled after little 'home cooking' eateries. I plan to have her sell a few other food items as well including bottled water and soda, and some sweets. Her pies are hot-sell items.

Bella Goth crashed at her friend Joe Carr's lovely new townhouse and proceeded to help him cheat on his then fiance. Thankfully, she didn't get pregnant and shortly after - under no small amount of pressure from Marylena- she moved out and bought herself a photography studio with a lovely little loft space upstairs. (I'm super proud of that build to be honest - occasionally all the stars align and I manage to build something that impresses even me. It's like Christmas come early and I think half the reason I play Bella so much is because I love that place.) She booty called Joe again once she'd moved in and still managed to avoid a pregnancy - the little home-wrecker that she is.

I've recently gotten very interested in documenting the lives of my in-game sims, so I plan to have each family make a trip to see Bella so that they can all have family photos of the children at various ages. I've also been decorating houses with more family pictures. The current record goes to the Hamilton-Carrs, who have no less than four family photos dotted around their living room, including a portrait of their infant daughter.

Despite being a home-wrecker himself, Joe is on a roll. With a LTW to have five top level businesses, he's exactly the kind of sim Hollis needs (though his wife may want to find herself someone else). He's purchased the local pharmacy and Job centre, giving Hollis' residents an opportunity to start earning career paths. He's also managed to put up the city's first nightclub (Furst) and plans to buy the municipal park (there's as yet no political structure in Hollis so this is perfectly legal for now...). He's a real community hero at the moment, with infrastructure so desperately needed.

I also last night played a challenge abit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngfTm_5lTtE

An investigation was launched into the admissions system at SimHampton University Outreach School, after the headmaster was caught giving Ignazio Caliente a score of 22/30 for a dinner consisting of a single bowl of burnt mac and cheese. The table conversation must have been scintillating. Suspicions were further raised when Ignazio was given 60/30 simply for the way he greeted the headmaster. Emma Caliente, Ignazio's granddaughter, is in the "private" Outreach School, but will she need to be re-assessed to maintain her place or are the University's suspicions misplaced?

I've been poking around with nightlife features, since I hadn't played that in a long time.
I sent my group of teen friends to the club and they ended up hanging out on the dance floor:

For some reason these sims remind me of the show Skins lol

Laura Ari has officially graduated Sim State! And with a 4.0 GPA. Laura was an orphan so the odds were against her from the very beginning but she did it! She moved in with some friends of hers who are starting a new cult! Ahem.. I mean..religious movement.

Laura was able to find a job in the culinary field as a sous chef right away so that part is out of the way. Unfortunately Peyton Williams and Meghan Harris still haven't found jobs in the paranormal field. Aaron Williams is up for a promotion but has a lot of skill to obtain before he can get it. Nicole Robinson currently has a low level job in the science career but its okay since she's still going to school part time to get her masters.

Meghan is currently pregnant with her second child by her fiance Adam Williams (Peyton and Aaron's youngest brother) who's currently away at college. Meghan and Adam will be the first in their group of friends to get married within the church so I need to think of something to make their ceremony unique.

Peyton, Aaron, Nicole and Laura are all single so I'll have to find partners for them eventually. Especially for Nicole and Laura since they're family sims and Laura's LTW is to reach her golden anniversary. I may pair Aaron and Nicole together since they're on each other's chemistry panel. But that'll have to wait because Aaron, Nicole, and Laura all got abducted, at separate times, and are now expecting, in that order.

Meghan had a baby boy and named him Sirius. Now that she had the baby she can focus on getting abducted as well. Peyton, Meghan and Adam are the only ones left! But really the pressure is on Meghan since she's the cult's leader.

When Adam returns from college a lot will be happening! Luna will be aging into a child, Adam and Meghan will finally get married, baby Sirius will get baptized, and the pregnant trio should all be giving birth. The rule is that once you have a baby via abduction you can't get abducted again so hopefully they can all focus on their LTWs after they're born.

Edit: I noticed Aaron had two hours left until he gave birth so I played for an extra two sim hours. He had a boy! His name is Archer. One down two to go!