Walks like a woman, but talks like a man ...

[gazania]

I seem to have a glitched female townie ... Caryl Collins. On the outside, she seems to be a typical Sims female. But she hides a dark secret.

Apparently, she's a male.

Now, I've had this situation once before, so I wasn't too concerned at first. I went into Sim PE, changed every bit of gender data per the instructions, checked to make sure I didn't forget anything, fired up the game again, and ...

Still a man, baby!

I tried using InSim to change her, even though I'd already changed the Sim PE data, so I didn't think that would do much good..

I was right. Still male.

I'm somewhat concerned because my daughter said she had a similar situation in her neighborhood, only in her case, it was one of her own Sims who suddenly had a sex change. That Sim kept corrupting every lot she lived in, and caused other annoying bits of nonsense. Eventually, we had to nuke the neighborhood entirely..

Is this a symbol of ... dum de dum dum ... impending corruption? (I don't SEE gender confusion on the list, but ....) I would be perfectly happy to let Caryl be transgendered, as long as she doesn't corrupt lots in the process!

This is a neighborhood that I messed up because I stupidly deleted the Downtown without doing anything about the Tricou graves, so it might have been on the chopping block, anyway. And I did a skintone mess-up. I deleted a custom skin firmly believing that NO Sim had it in that neighborhood, only to find out that two of them did, and reverted back to a default skintone. (I don't think that would be a problem ... I've seen what happens when you REALLY mess up re genetics ... but perhaps I misread the wiki article. ) I'm not particularly so enamored of the neighborhood that I HAVE to keep it (it was a case of a theme that looked nice on paper, but ...), though would prefer not to delete it right now. But it's a custom neighborhood. No huge whoop if I have to start again. Life will go on and all that.

If I need to merely execute her, can I start a residential lot, move a Sim in there, have him invite her to live with her, kill her, move him out, and leave the grave on the lot, never to be built on again? I'm not a huge fan of ghosts and tombstones.

Or should I just never invite her to a lot, and forget about it? Kind of treat her like I treat the Ottomases. If my Sim goes anywhere near one, either ignore the offending Ottomas or tell him/her/it to leave.

Sigh. Just when you think that Sims 2 can't be any more exciting. Thanks for any advice you can offer.

[sushigal007]

I've never heard of genderswapping as a sign of neighbourhood corruption! Interesting. I know you can make the game treat male sims as female and vice-versa with Insim or by simply clicking on "treat as male/female" in their character data in SimPE, so maybe that would help, I dunno.
For your solutions, I'm pretty sure moving a sim into a lot, moving her in, killing her and then moving out would result in the grave being sold, which is bad. You could kill the other sim too though. Or send her grave to a community lot before her ghost has a chance to spawn.

[Mootilda]

Don't uninstall and reinstall; it's overkill.

[gazania]

Well ... I can try a new neighborhood, see if the Caryl figure is in that one (she might be under another name, though--I would have to go by picture if she is). and see if she's still a man. Or invite her via the Christianlov phone.in one of my "good" neighborhoods. If she's a female in those, I think I should be fine, and a reset might be needed, at worst.

If she's corrupted in all neighborhoods, or if any other Sims were gender-reversed, time to check my mods and hacks. I've been playing for six years, and never personally had this happen. But perhaps a more recent mod or hack messed something up.

I should add that the situation with my daughter happened in another neighborhood that turned out to be corrupted for an entirely different reason even before this happened. We reset, and things ... well ... I don't want to jinx myself. :)

[joandsarah77]

Wow I've never had or heard of this before. At first i was going to say why not leave him-her as an interesting character about town, but if he could possibly corrupt everything then I'd be killing him off pronto. It does sound like the hood is toast anyway, maybe just delete the whole hood if your not particularly attached to it. That at least is one thing the game will let you delete safely.

[maxon]

Well ... I can try a new neighborhood, see if the Caryl figure is in that one (she might be under another name, though--I would have to go by picture if she is). and see if she's still a man. Or invite her via the Christianlov phone.in one of my "good" neighborhoods. If she's a female in those, I think I should be fine, and a reset might be needed, at worst.
It'll be a different sim file so I shouldn't think so. You shouldn't make the mistake of thinking a sim that looks the same and has the same name in a separate hood is the same sim. It isn't. The sim files for every hood only belong to that hood.

It does sound a bit like a bit of stray SimDNA has been floating around (after deletion) and then got attached to this sim. But I've not heard that one before either so it is a bit odd.

[gazania]

I don't know if he will corrupt everything. The game SEEMS to run smoothly when he's on a lot ... nothing off. Not even a lag. He interacts well enough with everyone.

I've just looked through dozens of thumbnails in several neighborhoods, and can't even find any Sim resembling this character. Anywhere. I tried going by hairstyle (he has the Tosha Go do ... I call them double ponytails, but most people call them pigtails), by basic features, by skintone. I can't find any other Sim like him. Not surprising. He's obviously not one of the more "regular" ones.

Yeah ... one side of me is curious to see if he will harm a neighborhood. I would even be curious to know if moving him a house corrupts the lot like my daughter experienced with her wonky Sim, but I don't think I'm THAT curious.

Makes me wonder if every once in a blue moon, the game "burps" when creating characters, and you get a glitched one; be it gender, skintone, etc.. Six and a half years of play ... several neighborhoods. That leads to THOUSANDS of different characters. It might be possible that for some reason, something gets mixed up when the game spits out a character in a very rare instance. I never saw this character before, by the way. I'd recognize him if I did, I believe! A female Sim that talks like a man? Kind of distinctive.

I haven't run the neighborhood checker. I'll see if anything is amiss there. But I was contemplating resetting the neighborhood because of the stupid things I did, anyway. It just might wind up being sooner than later.

EDIT ..> Sorry, Maxon. We appeared to have cross-posted.

[Mootilda]

When you changed the gender in SimPE, did you change both flags, or just the obvious one in the main Sim Description window? There's another one which is more hidden:
http://www.insimenator.org/index.php?topic=109024.0

[gazania]

I did all the steps, and carefully used that tutorial. But I did NOT notice seven property sets. He had only two. Not sure if that's because he's a game-generated character or not. I even made sure I had the latest version of Sim PE.

In my experience, gender-switching a glitched Sim is hit or miss. My daughter and I had three different instances of this since we started playing six years ago. One was totally messed up, but so was the neighborhood, so we just reset it. One I fixed very easily, using that tutorial. And then there is this one that I can't fix, no matter what. Odd.


EDIT ... Crud. I realize what it can be.

I downloaded a certain chicken coop and chickens from another site for a challenge. I also have an ACR-like mod. When my characters wanted to get frisky, I noticed that sometimes they wanted to get frisky with the chicken. I thought it odd (OK ... REALLY odd!), but just made sure that action was crossed out. But now, I wondering. This was from a very reputable creator; one well known in the Sim community, BTW.

I'm wondering if the game didn't mate a character with a chicken, and the genetics got really screwed up. It probably doesn't happen that often, which is why people haven't commented on that modded item before. But lucky me got the glitched Sim.

I do believe I should quarantine those files immediately. I only hope I didn't corrupt EVERY one of my neighborhoods. Fortunately, I didn't play most of them since I downloaded this mod. These were the only two neighborhoods where I placed a chicken coop.

Out go those files ... NOW ... after I delete the coops first! I'll put the files elsewhere, in case I'm wrong.

In a way, though, this might not be dire news. The character is not married to anyone, and does not have children. It might be time to create an Evil Sim and have him kill the glitched Sim off. :) Then don't play that lot again ... just leave it in the neighborhood. Interacting with the Evil Sim is Ok (except if I want the Evil Sim to kill that character; then it's not very good for the character!) ... interacting in that lot might not be. This might be a case of a corrupt character file, which is bad, but not dreadful. I've had corrupt character and lot files over the years. One just gets rid of them (but NEVER does the very bad things to do so).

Under NO circumstances should I have Caryl give birth! I have no idea what's going to come out, and for I know, it might cluck. I hope the game doesn't consider the chickens characters, since I'll be getting rid of the files.

Makes me wonder, though ... I wonder how Caryl shows up in Sim PE. Any strange memories? Anything off at all? Those two property files are puzzling to start with.

[Saturnfly]

I have an adult townie female that talks like a teenager/ YA female. I've always been a little cautious to integrate her into my game.

[Darby]

but if he could possibly corrupt everything then I'd be killing him off pronto.

If this is a corruption issue, the transgender sim is a victim of it - not the source of it. Corruption is in the neighborhood, and killing a sim who's showing the symptoms of corruption is merely killing the messenger. It does not remove the existing corruption that's already affecting the neighborhood, nor is there any reason to think it will prevent the symptoms from worsening over time.

I have heard of this before, but I don't know if it was 'hood corruption or just something wonky in that one character file. It was a resurrected ancestor I believe, so it could have been either, I think.

[simonem]

That's how to tell the difference between kinky and corrupted.

Kinky uses the feather, corrupted, the whole chicken........

[Mootilda]

What are the symptoms of the sim being male? Would it be possible to just fix the symptoms?

[joandsarah77]

If this is a corruption issue, the transgender sim is a victim of it - not the source of it. Corruption is in the neighborhood, and killing a sim who's showing the symptoms of corruption is merely killing the messenger. It does not remove the existing corruption that's already affecting the neighborhood, nor is there any reason to think it will prevent the symptoms from worsening over time.

I have heard of this before, but I don't know if it was 'hood corruption or just something wonky in that one character file. It was a resurrected ancestor I believe, so it could have been either, I think.

I worded that rather badly. I wasn't meaning the corruption originated with him, I just saw the op mention her daughter's character seemed to spread it were he went, so I mentioned I would kill him off. I know that doesn't fix hood corruption, but sometimes a corrupt hood can limp along for quite some time. She didn't seem that bothered if the hood got deleted or not. Plus if it is just a corrupt character file wouldn't killing him off be better than having him run around? Myself if it was an important hood I would be extracting sims and saving lots to file for a re-build.

[Darby]

Plus if it is just a corrupt character file wouldn't killing him off be better than having him run around? Myself if it was an important hood I would be extracting sims and saving lots to file for a re-build.

It never hurts to be on the safe side, but I really don't think a corrupted character file can infect other files. I think Mootilda would know better than I, though.

[gazania]

I wasn't clear about my daughter's instance. Her corrupt character was a user-made Sim. Throughout that character's "life", every place she lived in ... her parents' house, her dorm, her new place, a larger place .... corrupted the lot, no matter where she moved. Simply visiting a Sim did not cause any problems. I should have worded that better. Sorry. This corrupt file happened in a neighborhood already showing signs of corruption because we did stupid things that we didn't know were stupid at the time, and after we saw other signs of corruption unrelated to that Sim, we nuked the neighborhood. The birds sang and the sun came up, and life went on.

This Sim ... no matter what I do, I can't fix her. I tried fixing all I could in Sim PE, and tried via InSim. She still keeps acting male. How do I know this?

G version ... she has the voice of a male.

PG version ... the ACR-related mod keeps making my female characters want to woo-hoo with her as a male. Just for fun (I didn't save the game), I let her give it a go with my female Sim, and my user-created female wound up pregnant. This was after I temporarily disabled same-sex pregnancies. Since I purposely disabled same-sex pregnancies, this should not have happened. I did not carry the baby to term ... exited out of the game without saving.

R version ... I have a certain mod that allows guys to strut their stuff. This Sim had such an appendage. I fixed everything I could think of, reloaded the game, and she STILL has the appendage.

Sim PE shows everything about this Sim as female, now that I changed everything. I'm not sure what else to change. I did NOT see 7 property values for any Sim in any of my neighborhoods ... just 1 or 2 ... so I don't know what's up with that.

What makes me wonder about the suspect mod (chicken mod)?

1. That ACR-esque prompt I mentioned earlier. And BOY is it persistent! It keeps coming up over and over, and I have to keep X-ing it out. No. I do NOT want my Sims getting jiggy with the poultry or livestock. Thank you.
2. Even when I turn off the frisky mod, whenever I use my clothes-changing mod, "chicken" keep showing up on the menu (one for each chicken). I never tried to see if chickens would actually wear formal wear. I' m concerned that a rooster in a tux will not be the problem.
3. Once, I wanted to get a character naked for a hot-tub encounter with another Sim. I hit "chicken" by accident. The chicken then wound up with something really odd floating over its head. Hint ... my transgendered Sim has one now. I know the facts of life, and while roosters do have one of these appendages in real life, they most assuredly do NOT float over the chicken's head! (Another strange note about this mod ... the chicken in question was actually a hen, not a rooster.)

I'm wondering if this mod isn't treating animals as some sort of male character in the game, and that poor Caryl got caught in the DNA crossfire. I"m HOPING that taking this mod out doesn't hurt other neighborhoods. The other one never had the ACR mod initialized. Aside from a corrupted lot that did NOT have a coop on it, and never did, so far, the game seems OK.I get corrupted lots and Sims from time to time (rarely, but I do), for whatever reason. This might be totally unrelated. I moved the families out and bulldozed the lot (I couldn't get in to check for loiterers.) I made a new lot with the same house (a game lot), made a new Sim, and he and the new lot seem fine, as do the original occupants in their new house. A second check with the Hood Checker is probably a good idea. It won't hurt anything.

According to my daughter, in the neighborhood she played while I had the coops in my game files, she never saw "chicken" on the menu (unless the Sim was making chicken noodle soup, but that's another matter), and she has not seen any unusual Sims. She did not install a coop anywhere on her lots. It appears that the chickens don't get freaky or want to play dress-up unless you have a coop on a lot. That's good.

I'm going to wait and see, now that the chicken files are off the game, and see if anything strange happens. Since this is now three strikes for this neighborhood, I am tempted to nuke the neighborhood and just start a new one. I've already packaged the buildings I wanted to package (and did so way before I downloaded the chicken mod), and aren't sooo enamored of any Sims that I want to clone them, With only one VBT in the game, I would have taken my chances. But with two, and possibly three, VBTs?

The sun will continue to shine in real life, the rain will fall, and I'll still be paying taxes. Though I do want to look at Caryl's memories before I eliminate her, just to see what on earth was going on. If anything "chicken" comes up, perhaps I should politely notify the creator. She probably did not test with an ACR or a dresser mod.

[joandsarah77]

So maybe your sim is actualy male? It's very interesting anyway.

[gazania]

The mad scientist in me would love to play her a little longer (sans the chicken mod ... constantly X-ing out those commands was getting a little old). What if she did make a Sim pregnant, for instance? Why on earth is the game resisting the sex change so vehemently? The last time I did this, it was laughably easy. (Though my record IS a mere 33 1/3 chance of success so far!)

The practical side of me just wants to move on. The Sim is glitched, and I don't believe that playing her will make things any better. And at this point, I'm willing to move on to another neighborhood. Though if I get another transgendered Sim, maybe I'll give him or her a try

Thanks for everyone's input! :)

EDIT ...

I've deleted the neighborhood, and have it somewhere else, waiting to be backed up in case I ever want to play it again. Then it will be taken off my machine.

After looking through Caryl's data, I'm finding it really inconclusive whether that chicken mod had anything to do with her transformation. She might have been around before the mod even found itself in my Download folder. She actually was created before several of my other Sims, though I'm not sure if Sim PE has her listed in order of chronological appearance ... I would think that the chronology is fairly accurate, though, give or take a few places. However, she seems to have met only the Sims in the household where I first recognized her ... the recent one with the chicken coop. She seems to be a "sleeper" ... a glitched one, apparently. :)

She is definitely female, according to my revisions. I didn't miss anything.

Her memories seem to involve only the Sims who were in the household at that time, except for that Mystery Sim, of course. No family, no friends. At this point, it really does seem that she was a burp in the game. Oh, well. From what I'm reading, other players have experienced some interesting burps like these.

[grammapat]

LOL about all this...sorry! Your man/woman wants to woo-hoo with a hen with an (ahem) appendage...on it's head?!!! OMG

[gazania]

Hey, now that I'm over the shock, and made my decision (nuke the neighborhood, anyway), it IS funny. My goodness, the game took a kinky turn there ... or is it a corrupted turn? (LOL at simonem's comment.)

[Lucia940]

I was searching for answers on why this would happen and ended up on this thread. I hope someone reads this so I can get some insight. Ok, so here's the story. This sim is a born in game sim. She was perfectly fine.... however.. I had to save everything and reinstall sims 2. After that, I placed her in the neighborhood and bingo she was just as beautiful as always but she was a man in voice and action. It's like the game placed male flags all over the inside of her and the female part was just the wrapping. She does not corrupt anything. She is able to interact and well, acts like she should, except as a male. She got one of my female sims pregnant and I turned off the same gender pregnancy mod before that happened. So....... she is female on the outside and male on the inside. Very odd. She had the more harsh of the female voices to begin with but now, she well is a he. Beautiful but manly. lol So, this happens I think more often than reported. Any thoughts? BTW: I do not know how to use SimPE. I just starting playing last year around Christmas, so I am new at this. More so than all of you are. lol Thanks in advance. :blink:

[sushigal007]

I don't know why such a thing would happen, but if she looks female but acts like a man, you can use the Insimenator to make her act female. Or like I said higher up, by opening the character in SimPE and just changing Treat as Male to Treat as Female. It's very easy - open SimPE, open Neighbourhood Browser after backing up, open Sim Browser, choose sim. :)

[M.M.A.A.]

gazania, your sim probably read: Act like a lady, think like a man. lol!

[ttowntallyho]

Caryl sounds awesome. I would have backed up the neighborhood and continued to play it.

[The SimWhisperer]

[QUOTE=gazania]I seem to have a glitched female townie ... Caryl Collins. On the outside, she seems to be a typical Sims female. But she hides a dark secret.

Apparently, she's a male.

Can you descibe the townie, or if she's from a neighbourhood? Perhaps maybe one of our savey Sim PE people can go into it and check her or him out. :lol:

[Lucia940]

I used the insiminator to fix my strange but wonderful sim and liked her better the other way. She was kinder. lol Anyhow...... thank you for the insim advice! SimPE scares the crap out of me. I downloaded it about 2 weeks ago and was totally lost. I saw where it needed plug in's for different functions and so on. I have never been scared of a program before, but SimPE is the one I'm not going to use. I don't have enough knowledge to use it, though I could study up on it. I really want a career done but looks like I will have to do it, so SimPE would have to be what I use. I know, I'm rambling. lol I don't think anyone is still doing careers for sims 2. I know of one person but their demands were insane, so I asked them to just let it go. Would anyone be interested in the ultimate dark angel career? Just wondering if my suffering would be worth it. lol

[NiamhLuvsJLS]

I think SimPE is the best solution, I haven't had this problem before, but my suggestion is either delete some MODs or CC that you think maybe causing it or just try your best sorting the thing through SimPE. Hope you like my suggestion, but this is just a suggestion, never had this happen to me, so... sorry if I am wrong :faceslap:

[PressStart]

My friend had such experience, her female sim turned into a man and couldn't do anything about it, she didn't even used cheats or mods. Later she got pissed off and deleted the whole game and never played it again.

I on the other hand once also had such a experience like mentioned here but with an npc sim. Can't remember the name really, all I can remember is that it was a she outside and was male by act and voice. At first I freaked out like wth is this... then chilled and just tried to reload the lot, she was still there in the same form, then I asked her/him to leave after that I never saw her/him. I even searched the sim tab and never found him/her later I planed to kill her/him soon as I see it but never had a chance, lucky for me and that sim L0L. Not sure what causes this, it is like a easteregg sort of virus that the devs left in the game to troll us.
If my sim would be like that I know I would kill him and see the progress if his children would act the same, then if everything is fine just save every created lot, back it up, deleted the game, reinstall and create new n'hood with my stuff and see if that happens again.