I don't think this one is funny, but I will explain anyway!

I'm beginning to reach the end of rotation 3 (finally!), and I've just got to get Angela, Dustin, and Dirk through college. Lilith unfortunately didn't roll the want to go, so she lives in a house Downtown. She visits the campus sometimes, though.

Angela decided to major in Drama, and is in her last semester of Senior year. So far, she has gotten straight A+s and has a 4.0 GPA, hopefully she keeps it up until she graduates. She rolled the want to get engaged to Dustin and that want was mutual, so I had him propose. Angela has also gotten to Body Level 7 on her own; she has become addicted to the exercise bike for some reason.

Dustin, who is only in his second semester of Sophomore year, majored in Economics and has also managed to keep a 4.0 GPA. As mentioned above, he is now engaged to Angela. Before you ask, the reason for him being two years younger than Angela is because when you load their lots for the first time, Angela is 10 days away from adulthood, Dustin is 12 days, and Dirk is 13 days.

Speaking of Dirk, he is in his second semester of Freshman year. He has majored in Biology and has made the Dean's List. Also, he has become romantic with Lilith again and can't keep his hands off her, as they have two bolts, I think.

Angela and Lilith are civil as they have lost their enemy flags. It's a shame that the sister drama is gone, but at the same time, it's nice that they are getting along somewhat.

Here's what's been happening in Strangetown this week.

Nervous Subject Curious passed away of old age. To the five kids he raised, both alien and adopted, he will always be Mom. Rest in peace, Nervous. We'll miss you getting into fights with random townies on community lots.

Telegonus and Tina Beaker are happy to announce the birth of their daughter, Electra.

Sharla Davis divorced Aldric and took little Charles back to her dad's house. She still loves Aldric, but since she started working for Buck Grunt, she has discovered her moral compass and can't condone the things Aldric has done, and is planning to do.

David Ottomas got a girlfriend his own age: Vanessa Mazza, who he knew from college. They connected because they both never take their signature hats off. They have moved in together. She is going into politics.

Dr. Monica Bratford has taken over running the brand-new scientific research facility, also funded by a wealthy anonymous benefactor, which will provide housing for single scientists who work at the military's various research labs.

Ophelia finally got fed up with Gunnar staying out all night and sleeping all day and moved out. She moved in with her latest conquest, William Williamson. Ophelia always follows up a good choice with a bad one. Her friend Trisha had them over for dinner, literally. She turned William into a vampire while they were there, which upset Ophelia and she left early. It remains to be seen how William will adapt to his new condition, but surely he can't go on teaching high school this way.

Remember Guy's old girlfriend, Melanie, who got turned into a werewolf by Mickey Dosser? Yeah, me neither. She turned up at La Fiesta Tech, where she had been hiding out in the desert at night and still going to classes by day. She's returned to Strangetown to squat in an old abandoned house. It might not be a good idea to visit the Strangetown Park after midnight these days. Half-eaten bodies have been turning up there. She made some friends while at college who may join her there after graduating--a couple of them are very interested in the werewolf lifestyle.

The Hobbs family in Dodge got another section of wall up for their house addition and are well on their way to finally being able to add a stove to their home after buying a fire sprinkler.

The roomies visited the Pleasantview pet park with their cat. Lots of playable neighbors visited, but chose to leave their pets at home. Several lonely strays showed up instead.

Melissa generously grilled hot dogs for everybody. Naturally, all the other sims on the lot immediately headed straight for the snack machines.

I'm currently going through EA lots that I never use, and seeing if I can appropriate the spaces into something more useful for my game. Hans Trap Door Corp has been turned into Hans Talent Corp, for the show business, entertainment, music, dancing and modeling careers. I installed an elevator to make the existing upper floors accessible, and stocked it full of skilling items and other fun stuff related to the careers. I wanted a space like Superstar from Sims 1 had, with studio lots for my entertainment-related sims to congregate and socialize.

Floor 1- lobby, newsstand, coffee
Floor 2- gym, locker room, smoothie bar
Floor 3- sushi bar, "rejuvenation spa" (cosmetic surgery), agents' office
Floor 4- sets for photoshoots
Floor 5- set for a police show
Floor 6- set for a medical show
Floor 7- set for a Freezer Bunny kids show
Floor 8- recording studios
Floor 9- executive office
Floor 10- observation platform because it's too tiny for anything else
Floor 11- fun colored lights to change like the Empire State Building

Pics attached in case you're interested and cuz I'm proud of it

My founder, Andreas Voss, died just two days after his second wife (who had only just retired). He was 77. His son, Bernd, with wife and daughter, moved in just one day before so they could inherit the house and keep him company. They did like the house and stayed on for a bit after he died, but felt they needed something bigger with a proper backyard for Claudia. Bernd's wife, Tara, is a judge, so it seemed fitting to buy a bigger property (now they had a lot more money). They moved to Driftwood Bay which is a large shopping subhood (and still being filled up). Before they moved they bought a dog at the newly opened pet shop in Driftwood Bay. Now they're happily esconced in a house which they redecorated. It also has a pool, a garage, and a basement, none of which they'd had before.

Okay, this may be a little more interesting than last time. Most of this happened by itself, which makes it more funny to me.

Angela has graduated with honours, a 4.0 GPA. She had an interesting graduation party with Dustin, Dirk, random townies, and her mother. Mary-Sue was the only "official" guest who turned up and even then, she just smustled then went up stairs to play darts. The party was a disaster until Mary-Sue had some Mac & Cheese, to which it became a "Good Time"; could be a coincidence, but it was funny.

Dustin is in his last semester of Senior year, still keeping his 4.0 GPA. Before his first Senior year exam, Brandi, Beau, and Skipp (Unborn Baby Broke) payed him a visit. He invites Angela over every few days to talk and flirt with her. He has also made enemies with a random uni townie called Kitty. Dustin tried to be friendly with her, but she wasn't having it. Many negative responses to chats later, and being slapped around by Kitty, Dustin snaps then proceeds to poke and attack her.

Funnily enough, Dirk made enemies with Kitty first, due to the same reason. He tried to admire her, she wasn't having it; polite conversation, wasn't having it. Because of the amount of negative responses she was giving him, she proceeded to poke him for no reason. This resulted in this weird rivalry between Kitty and the step-siblings.

Speaking of their status as step-brothers, Dustin and Dirk have gotten much closer and are close to being best friends. I even caught them exchanging a Family Kiss.

Dirk is in his second semester of Junior year, also with a 4.0 GPA. His relationship with Lilith is still going strong, they have been on two dates since Dirk entered Junior year, and he rolled the want to have a third. Despite that, he is farting hearts for the cafeteria woman, who doesn't seem to notice him. John Burb shoved him for being a peeping Tom...

I think that's it for the previous session, in my next session, they should graduate. Hopefully.

I have been keeping my Strangetown more interesting to me by varying the types of households I have and not sticking to just single-family households. There are the legacy Curious, Grunt, Ottomas, and Beaker houses, which will be passed down in the family as long as someone has the family name. Johnny Smith doesn't look like he's going to have any children, so he's decided his legacy is leaving his family home to all aliens and alien hybrids in Strangetown who have nowhere else to live. The vampires (only one so far) have taken over the Specter house, which I think suits them, and the werewolves are living in an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. Both vampires and werewolves have to have human helpers live with them since they can't have jobs.

There is a military barracks for single conscripts (mostly college dropouts with no other prospects). No aliens allowed. There is the mental asylum and there is a research facility with a residence for single scientists, since so many scientists live in Strangetown.

Jessie Pilferson and Olivia Curious both have an interest in cooking, so when they graduated, they bought an old farmhouse near the motel to turn into a farm-to-table cafe, and they'll live upstairs. Matthew Hart is also living there; his job is to get supplies and make Olivia happy.

The Davis house is where Aldric wants to start his cult and recruit new members to live there; his brother Almeric likes the idea of fleecing new cult members of their money. The cult is taking a while to get off the ground, though. The Davis brothers have a hard time getting their act together.

There are some single-family households, but I've been trying to come up with themes for them based on the personalities of the family living there. For instance, Ripp and Jill Grunt are both artists, and they enjoy having something of an open-door policy and having artistic types hang out there all the time. It's been fun to go around the neighborhood and play different types of houses with various personal dynamics going on.

I decided I'd copy what @BlueAlien is doing but using the Emerald Heights sims. 18 families. And I'm sure I'm misspelling all the names.

For Jhonaton Goth, being out camping along the road is a refreshing break. No one's around, the telescope viewing is great. And then Katylena Rotzpatz came by. Hot girlfriend, telescope, who needs to get up and move on?

Shonda Watson thinks this is it's own special version of hell. At least her ex got their daughter (and his new family) out promptly. She's lonely, has no way to talk to anyone except her own self in her mirror (I was such an optimist to hope for a charisma want!) and it keeps raining, and she got struck by lightening!

Claire got her herd of girls out in good order, but they didn't manage to move on the second day. (Rolled for the lot Jhonaton was sleeping in on.) Still, she packed useful skilling items and has the girls hard at work practicing all the skills they'll need to know. They got lucky the first day and made it to a large enough area they can pitch all four tents.

Not everyone did.

The King-Montes family has to sleep in shifts. On the bright side, the adults finally got married. On the downside, David got struck by lightening. Litzy got taught to walk. Josue wanted a skill point and jumped rope until he got it, and then, bless his little sim heart, he rolled a numbered body point want, and he's tolerably in green aspiration to age up.

Pearl Davenport barely got out of town, but she's pretty good at seeing disaster coming: she's got experience in that. This is still not going to go well for them, with her pregnant and a toddler. On the bright side, there's nothing to clean, and the kids are having fun running around in nature.

I let Seamus Coppersmith resurrect Jia and Rod, and they're moving their way along, but Seamus has a fling going with Pearl already, and I don't know if they'll make it down the road, and after two resurrections they're pretty near broke.

I feel really bad for the Woods family. They came up twice on the dice as first day leavers, but never could roll an empty lot they could go to. Sergeant Woods sees the disaster coming, but he can't get his family far enough.

Unlike my inspiration, I didn't give any families the bonus of starting at their destination, they're all going to have to scramble to get there and build shelter by winter. I figured it'd be good for the Raffertys and Rotzpatzs little sim souls. Since they're premades, I'm using a prep lot to enroll the kids in flexi-school and have the grownups quit any jobs, and buy their items and tents.

Poor Tessa Ramirez stayed pregnant in this past rotation. When the week started it was her infant daughter's birthday. After she'd aged up to toddler, Tessa set to work on gaining skill points for her job. Needing a Logic point, I sent her to the telescope. Naturally, she was abducted and came back pregnant. Not only was she pregnant, but it was twins! That meant she and had to pack everyone up and leave behind her (now too small) family house. After settling into their new place, guess who decided to stargaze again? Guess who got abducted? Guess who came back pregnant once again.

It was a trying week for Tessa.

I started a new BACC 'hood tonight and it's already spicy.

In the first week, Lucky River founder Summer Chance opened a club: The Risky Shot.

On her second day as a business owner, Summer got it on with JC Townie on a couch at the club and was impregnated.

When she found out, Summer collected her thoughts and decided that she absolutely wanted the baby. She invited JC over and broke the news to him; he was ecstatic. They agreed to live together to raise the baby, but they weren't sure about becoming a couple. They'd just met!

After Summer gave birth to baby JD, the boy's father rolled a want to marry Summer. So much for having just met.

However, JC has three bolts with the lovely Tiana Townie (compared to his two bolts with Summer), and Summer had her eyes set on both Dante Townie and Rogue Townie before she met JC, and they are both more her "type".

JC invited Tiana over and they autonomously kissed the moment she arrived. Dante came through as a walkby. Summer greeted him and they proceeded to kiss!

Luckily, Summer's jealousy setting is In Love, and JC's love for her isn't requited.

It's looking like Summer and JC will have a co-parenting/roommate type relationship while they explore other romantic interests. They're both Family Sims and neither wants to be separated from their son.

This BACC's starting off with a bang (literally) and I love it!

The Sty family in the noble subhood of Elders Creek has been trying to start a family. But as the noble lands have all been soaked in chemicals from chemical warfare, children are hard to come by without a handmaid. These are women raised in the serf slums of prison provinces. The land there is "clean". However, the Stys didn't have the money for even the community public service handmaids. But, then fortune intervened. Henry bought a lamp from the gypsy camp (sorry, didn't mean that as a pejorative. Please feel free to suggest a better name). It was rumored the lamp was magic. It was. It unleashed a Will o the Wisp. These are magic characters. They spawn, fill bank accounts, disable other supernatural beings on the lot, permanently, and then disappear. They also make excellent hand maidens. Their children will also be will o the wisps.

Anyhow, she did her thing and left the family with a brand new baby boy.

I just found the Jankowskys are getting their lot cleaned up and packing things away as it's getting closer to winter now.Dodge had some preparations being made in the service center moving things into the new addition to free up space for dining tables in the lower level front room where the town's public soup kitchen is.

There ended up being a lot of tension in the Chance household!

Summer and Dante Townie wound up going on a date, WooHooing, and on a whim, Summer decided she wanted to marry him. Funnily enough, they didn't even like each other initially (despite the 2-bolt attraction)! They wound up tying the knot and over a week later have two boys: August and Winter.

JC, on the other hand, became a playable and chose the last name Baker. He and Tiana also decided to get hitched and have a daughter, Olivia, with a second on baby on the way.

Summer, Dante, JC, and Tiana wound up co-parenting/rooming together for a week. Tensions were high at first but things eventually settled; Summer and JC are solid friends, though she dislikes Tiana. Meanwhile, Dante and JC clicked pretty well and became best friends! I don't think Dante and Tiana interacted much.

JD is now a child, August is a toddler, and little Winter is still an infant.

At the end of the second week, JC and Tiana moved out to build their own house. They're low on funds but with JC's job in the Slacker career, they should be able to make ends meet.

--

Lucky River has welcomed its second, third, and fourth new households (excluding the Bakers)!

Second is Bryan Oak. He grew up on his parents' farms and moved out to L.R. asap. He thinks this town will be an excellent opportunity for him, and he quickly got to gardening and opening the first grocery store. Though he's not keen on having a large number of children, he hopes to sow the seeds of a strong, long-lasting family of gardeners.

On his second week, Bryan and Dominique Townie became friends. It took a bit as, once again, they disliked one another at first. But once they got to know each other a bit, they discovered a mild (1-bolt) attraction. Bryan wanted to take things slowly, but he weighed in his mind all the work he had to do: Between growing food, running the store, cooking, keeping a clean home, socializing... he realized he couldn't keep doing it all in one day. He proposed a committed relationship to Dominique (which she happily accepted) and asked her to move in (which she also accepted).

Unbeknownst to them, Dominique is pregnant. Bryan is a "traditional" sort, so it looks like another wedding is on the horizon (well, that and I'd like to switch Dominique's last name off of Townie asap).

--

Third is the Fang household.

Kiyoshi has his eyes set on becoming a game designer, but he knows that's a difficult industry to break into. He's settled instead for opening an arcade in town! A fun place to hang out that doesn't involve alcohol or other "adult" activities (looking at The Risky Shot's convenient couch), it'll be perfect for once the kids get older and start itching to be off the home lot.

In his off time, Kiyoshi paints or hangs out with oddball Kitty Townie, a playful woman with far too many romantic ideas for her own good.

--

Finally, sisters Melanie and Pixie Blackfield are about to make their first entrance.

Melanie has her eyes set on cash, cash, and more cash. Maybe with a side of romance?

Pixie loves the feminine things in life and cannot wait to start her own cafe. She loves coffee and relaxing atmospheres.

A sad farewell to Ginger Newson, aged forty - burnt to death while alone at home.

As a family sim, all Ginger had ever wanted was a happy family of her own, and to give her children a better start in life than she and her foster-siblings had had. It took her a long time to find a suitable husband, though; she dated Orlando Centowski when they were teens, but Orlando also dated a couple of other women and invariably rolled wants to fall in love with them while on a date with Ginger; eventually he got Ginger's sister Gabriella pregnant and married her in a hurry. At long last, after dating other unsuitable (and married) men, Ginger paid for a crystal ball date and met exterminator Robi Charvat, a man who was willing to commit to her - but then war broke out, and both Ginger and Robi were conscripted on the eve of their wedding. Both were lucky enough to make it through the war unharmed - unlike Ginger's brother Gallagher, who was discharged with an injury that leaves him unable to work outside the home - and, years later, were finally able to marry and move into a pretty little cottage. Sadly, the hoped-for children failed to arrive. Neither ACR nor daily directed tries for baby resulted in pregnancy, and Ginger wasn't getting any younger. She lavished her love on her two dogs, but still longed for children.

Eventually Ginger convinced Robi that since they weren't able to conceive, adoption was a possibility. They had to work hard to scrape up the three thousand simoleons to qualify as adoptive parents, but with a promotion bonus they managed it. Robi had envisioned a cute little baby and felt rather out of his depth when instead the social worker brought seven-year-old Homer to live with them. Homer seemed to worry he wouldn't fit in and would be sent away again, but Ginger did everything she could to make him feel secure, understanding him on a level only a former foster-child could.

The next morning, Ginger had a day off; she saw Robi off to work and Homer off to his first day at the local school, and then since it was starting to snow she lit a fire. Unfortunately someone had left a book on the floor two tiles from the hearth, and a stray spark set it alight. In trying to put out the fire, Ginger caught on fire herself. After several horrified seconds, her Watcher hit on the idea of teleporting in a neighbour, Marylee, who (thanks to Midge's fire safety mod) had proven herself able to put out fires autonomously... but the Grim Reaper made it to Ginger before Marylee could.

Robi and Homer arrived home at the same time and found the house empty and smelling of smoke. Now Robi is a sole parent to a boy he's only just met, and Homer is understandably traumatised and throwing tantrums.

Poor Ginger, unfulfilled for so long in life, and then dying the day after her dream of parenthood came true. What's worse is that not only does Gabriella have a nice house, happy marriage and cute son with Ginger's teen love, young Georgia also beat Ginger to it by becoming pregnant to a man she refused to name; Gallagher, somewhat aimless in life, has started seriously dating the shopkeeper next door; and even workaholic Gavin, who never had time for romance due to working two jobs his entire life, has just fallen head over heels in love with a workmate and will soon find out he's going to be a father! Ginger, the one who most cared about having children, was almost the last of the Newsons to have one... and then she died.

(I could have exited without saving, but I'm trying to play this hood for the drama!)

The gardener just left the Capp's manor!
Gardener: "It's a bit late. I have to leave now".
Me: "Really? And I was getting used to having you around the house all night yelling at the plants you couldn't get to but the gardening mod made you tend them anyway"

Seriously, she came to the house on Friday at 10 a.m. and she left on Saturday at 6 p.m.! She didn't finish even half of the job because she spent a big portion of the day yelling that the plants are inaccessible (she did them anyway but still...). What were Maxis thinking back in the day when they made this house? That the modders would come for sure and save the day once more? It's impossible to take care of all those shrubs even with the mod... And it's placed on a freaking slope that makes it a nightmare for the game camera! I hate this house... Consort keeps rolling wants to buy a car, where am I supposed to place a driveway in this mess?

On a positive note, the gardener looks cute. Maybe I'll have Tybalt "check her out" when he'll be back from college. It's difficult to find partners for the sims in a town where almost everyone is "family"

The Dodge community service center got more work done to prepare it for the coming winter with more objects being moved into the new back room added on recently.

@natbsim75
The Capp manor is nothing compared to the Summerdream house! At leas the manor can be fixed if you "boolprop constrainfloorelevation false" and level the lot in three layers, the Summerdreams' place is built on such a wobbly terrain that if you do that the house's walls are gonna get all wobbly and wavey too.

Also, you don't have to place a driveway, per se. That "porch" under Juliette's room in front of the house (covered by bricks) is just big enough to fit an extension. No animation, but still functional.

To be fair to the builders, @natbsim75, I don't think bushes needed trimming in base game. It's still an awful house. I recommend an earthquake leveling the lot.

Vidcund's second alien baby is another boy, Galileo. Tycho, who is a teen now, is very excited to have a full brother and is all over him. Euclid, whose mother is Monica nee Bratford, seems to have had a lot of questions after the birth, as he got his father into a hangout in which they talked about woohoo. This is perfectly logical so I let it run, and Vidcund let himself get into orange energy before finally getting up and going to bed.

Things are heating up in Luna Canyon.
Henry Piccolo, founder and serial dater, got caught on a date with Sugar Baker. Henry's wife Catherine was just promoted to a congresswoman and now is not the time for his affairs to become public. Catherine has known about Henry's ways for a long time. She's dealt with him impregnating their housekeeper Diane and bringing home all sorts of women in front of the kids. She doesn't care. Henry got them to Luna Canyon, he got them their beautiful estate, and plus he's extremely charismatic. She needs Henry by her side and is okay with whoever he sleeps with as long as he's there for her at social gatherings.
This time is different. Henry was out with Sugar at a bar publicly. Sugar's husband Evan walked into the bar and caused a scene. Not only was Henry caught in public with another woman, but now he might be the cause for a divorce too. Evan doesn't seem super into forgiving Sugar. He's been working as a fast food shift manager, just opened his own bakery, AND he takes care of the baby. To make things worse, their son just aged to a toddler and has a fear of his parents breaking up. Poor Evan. And poor Sugar - she'll have to get her act together quick if Evan kicks her out.

Gunnar got my werewolf Melanie pregnant. Right before he is to become an elder too. Sorry, Gunnar, I don't care how much you fear having a baby, this time you're changing diapers.

After playing Vidcund almost to elderhood himself, he is finally interested in a woman. And she just happens to be Tina Beaker, wife of Loki's and Circe's son. Guess history repeats itself.

Played the last semester of my latest polyblob in uni. The last sim to graduate desperately wanted to graduate with honors, but she was pregnant. So she spent the entire semester studying, sleeping and eating and going to class/final while tired and stinky. I had to have a recently graduated sim do a couple of her assignments, but she pulled through! Summa cum laude and the toddler is still on track for learning his skills, and everyone grew up in platinum. Unfortunately one of the other adults got the flu... now they are all going back to the main hood to move in with one of the sets of grandparents, who still have three kids of their own at home. *cries* I hope the flu doesn't utterly destroy me.

I have a similar setup, but my gardeners don't pitch a fit over the unreachable plants. You could try Pescado's noroutefail - I think that's what does it my game.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/al/hacks/

Alternatively, you could try Midgethetree's version of "Perfect Plants". This uses the gardening tools that came with Mansion & Garden Stuff to tell the game whether or not to allow the bushes to become overgrown.
https://midgethetree.tumblr.com/pos...ted-for-seasons

Back when I didn't have many mods, I usually just ripped out all the hedges at the Capp and Summerdream houses. I replaced the hedges at Capp Manor with the low brick wall that came with the base game. I thought it looked quite classy.

Feeling a little bit of nostalgia when thinking back on how I used to enjoy playing some of the Maxis sims back-in-the-day, and decided to download cloned versions of them (from Maxis Taste) to makeover and then add to a new neighborhood I'm going to start working on more in a week or so when I take a break from my research station neighborhood (random pics of the research 'hood, more pics and a couple more pics). I've also cloned (40) sims from a few of the MTS Hood Building Group's great neighborhoods to increase the population and add a little variety... especially since I like a lot of the backstories (which can be easily tweaked to fit my new neighborhood's story arc) they gave most of their sims. So, it should be fun to play the Maxis sims, HBG sims and a few of my own sims all in one neighborhood. I'm excited.

So far the backstories for the Maxis sims are as follows:
After running away from home as a teen, Lilith met Tara and Jacob, who were also teen runaways at the time, at a home for troubled teens (in another town far from their own) that was being run by Jodie and Marla. With the financial support of the Worthington Foundation (thanks to Frances whom Marla met while at university), they were also able take on full-time counselors (Gabriel, Chastity and Natasha) to help guide the troubled teens and put them on the path to a better life... hopefully. They have now grown up and managed to finish university (though it was a struggle for two of them), and are ready to start their lives as adults and give a little something back to the people who helped them get to this point.

That's all I've come up with for now.

And the 'hood will be a city/downtown setting (instead of my usual countryside or suburban ones) with only rentals for living options. So, time for me to get cracking and start building some more lofts/apartments.

I've been working on writing my advanced BACC rules to make sure I can avoid making mistakes of growing my towns too fast like I've done in the past without having rules written down to guide me.I'll have to lift some restrictions on things as I go and start with the basics of establishing my first homesteaders and getting their service center build to bring the farmer's market indoors before winter arrives and forces it to shut down for the season.I prefer starting my towns very small and slowly building it up over time to eventually become a larger center and eventually become a city.