Julianne Charlot's second day running her ceramics shop was rough. Business was brisk and profits were good, but customers were in a foul mood, throwing negative stars despite all efforts to cheer them up. The shop bounced from 3 stars to 2 stars and back to 3 stars again at least 4 times during the day. Julianne was happy to be out of there at closing time!

Julianne's partner, Nellie, had a better time the next day teaching a cash register class in the vocational technology school wing of Douglas Public School in Emerald Heights. Of the 8 townies in attendance, 2 finished their gold badges, 5 earned their silver badges, and 1 completed her bronze badge. Ruby was noticeably inattentive during class, and walked out shortly after she got her bronze badge. I guess she'd had enough!

With about 10 owned shops already running in Mesa Flats, and more opening soon, I've found SimWardrobe's Vocational Training Controller a great way to train up townies to staff the growing businesses, especially in cash register and restocking.

I managed to go through with the Brandon Brooks x Dara Draper marriage, and even made them have a baby girl, Dani. However, it's a lot more unwholesome than I expected it to be. What should have been two widows finding true love after they had lost all hope turned out to be more like the midlife crisis of two middle aged people with very different backgrounds. But I guess sometimes not everything in life can be perfect, huh.

On the bright side, Danielle Oakley's affair baby (is there an English word for this? In Hungary we call them Munchie Kids lol) Maurelle turned out to be a catalyst in fixing her relationship with her husband Gary-Stu, and the two are now in love once again.

Honestly all this playing with what's basically a gender-bent Pleasantview kinda made me want to genderbend another maxis hood. Maybe a Strangetown with Oliver Spirit and his daughter Anxious Lab Rat? Or maybe a Veronaville starring Ramona and Julian? ...actually, Ramona and Julian, Marzia vs Tamara, and fairies Titus, Ottilia, Pebble and Overcoat. I might just do that.

Tank and the General's wife Kristen had the day off at the Grunt house, which was a good thing, because it was a big, big day.

Tank's husband David (Ottomas)'s alien hybrid son Isherwood was afraid of having a party, but it was also Kristen's elder birthday and Buzz came home wanting to throw a party, so he threw a birthday party for Kristen and Isherwood was left to grow up on his own. The General still hadn't made up with Ripp, so Tank called and had him, his wife Ophelia, and their son Creon come over as well. Buzz and Kristen's daughter Lyla was still in high aspiration from her teen birthday party the day before, which was good, because all she wanted was people and the house really isn't designed well for entertaining. Kristen barely got to the cake prior to six and the General was in the bathroom at the time. Well, he is pretty old...Isherwood grew up happily in his room and continued playing with his toys, even as the General vanished from the sidebar and spooky music began. Kristen discovered the urn when she went in to take a bubble bath.

My policy is to free-range the bereaved, but if things absolutely need doing (like feeding the dog or getting groceries) I'll have one designated functional mourner, which in this case was David. Lyla put herself to bed in Tank and David's room, then got up in the middle of the night to cry into birthday cake, play the piano, and return to bed in Kristen and Buzz's room. David's father Peter, who is a Commander and the General's right-hand man, stayed after the party and David influenced him to clean up the party mess before collapsing exhausted into bed with Tank. Peter is officially the one who put all the toddler stuff into the attic and moved down a big-boy bed for Isherwood. Kristen sat up all night doing financial consulting, despite the big payout for survivors that the military provided everyone but poor Ripp.

Next door at the Newson-Terranos, Stella had Saturday off, and was on hand when the social worker dropped off her and Ginger's second adopted toddler, Jessica, whose first act was to snuggle the dog in the middle of the road. Ginger invited all of her siblings, plus Gavin's wife Tina and Gabriella's fiance Juan Smith, over, so they were on hand when their first adoptee, Tommie, grew up to child. Tommie's favorite aunt is still Georgia, but Jessica glommed onto Tina. Stella is part of the team testing Lazlo Curious's SmartMilk formula before it goes public, so they were able to teach Jessica three out of four toddler skills before the sun came up on Sunday. With so many hands, they were also able to install play equipment on the lot. The old barracks they started squatting in so long ago is practically unrecognizable, as Stella and Ginger have been sprucing it up as they could afford it. The upstairs hall is still a little crowded, though. They're thinking about opening up the game room.

It was just a matter of time before Rebecca Walton Shaw discovered that her husband, Victor was a serial cheater..and when she did, all of her love for him went away.
She woke up on Wednesday morning, cold and angry with him. Without a word she started watching TV-she had the day off, but she's not going to give him the benefit of a kind word or even a smile.
Victor figured that it would be hopeless to try to reconcile with her then or ever. After all, she'd caught him dead to rights, and there was no reasonable explanation for his cheating..so he did the only logical thing-turned the car over to her, took out all of his money from the bank and moved out.
So he landed at the homeless park, bewildered at what had happened to him. Cleaning himself up as best as he could, he went to work, hoping that nobody would notice that he was rather glum.
His boss, Damien Lloyd, insisted on coming home with him, no matter what Victor said..
"Oh, my wife is home, she's not expecting company..the house is a mess..."
to which Damien told him,
"I don't care what your house looks like, I just want to see how everything is going..."
So when they ended up at the homeless park, Victor felt ashamed of himself. Damien did not say a word but kindly gave him enough money to buy a proper house.
"Look, I've been where you are..and I know how humiliating it can be..don't feel ashamed of yourself, or your life..just take this money and buy a new place, ok? There's no shame in being down on your luck."
The next day, he bought the house that Adoracion Bencard had owned before and moved in. Later that day, he received a promotion for having taken Damien's boss out to lunch. (Damien had talked to her, and she agreed with him about Victor's work.)
Again, Damien came home with him, and told him,
"Don't ever lose faith in yourself or other people. Sometimes the worst that happens can lead to better things."

What Damien did not tell him was that his wife Lucy had walked by the homeless park earlier the day before and found Victor there..then called Damien to tell him something was going on.

Damien called his friend Alec (Victor's father) if he knew what was going on with Victor, and Alec told him that Victor had called him earlier that day asking for money and telling him why, but that he couldn't send any-the bank hadn't open early enough.

Damien took matters into his own hands-by getting enough money from his own sources to give to Victor.

Damien Lloyd is one of the rare bosses who truly cares about his employees.

Eli and Ami Jankowsky woke up to the first morning in the winter of 1841 and had to get ready for the day as it began to get light outside.They had to pack a few things up around the lot as it was getting colder out though they still haven't had any snow because it was a sunny day.They both ended up walking to work later in the day in the middle of the afternoon and got home at 6PM after work.It was time for bed before too long and they started getting ready for bed by about 8PM.

Oh, and the second part of Rebecca Walton's breaking up of her marriage:

While she was furious at Victor for having cheated on him, she herself had been cheating on Victor, as well with none other than: Sheldon Lloyd, son of Damien Lloyd, while he was living at his parents' house after he got thrown out of his home for cheating on his wife with: Rebecca.

After Victor had moved out, and Sheldon had come home from work, Rebecca called him over for some romance. After their tryst in bed, she invited him to move into her house and he agreed. He fell madly in love with her and hopes to marry her.

The kicker of this entire thing? All 3 men work at the same company. Sheldon is a President one of the divisions, as is his father, while Victor is an up and coming executive. He reports directly to Damien, and one can imagine the fireworks that will occur if Sheldon should ever bring home Victor from work.

(Also, Sheldon's father has been making noises about Sheldon moving out to his own place. This development is a relief to Damien, who would also like to have his wife come home from taking care of all their grandchildren. It gets lonely without her.)

I'm beginning to wonder if Rebecca is deliberately doing this. True love and all that, you know...

I managed to finally make Darren Dreamer happy in one of my Pleasantviews. He met Ivy Copur (the adult, not the teen) in the park. They played chess and found out they had a lot in common. She kept calling, they went out, and then Darren wanted to get married. They are very happy and boring together. Ivy brought a large telescope and all they want to do is skill. They don't want kids, but Dirk and Lilith are living with them, so they have a grandbaby in the house. Now if only Cassandra will leave him alone! Cassandra, you made your bed with Don Lothario, and I'm sorry your marriage is miserable, but let Darren be happy and boring like he wants!

So I've been playing Strangetown again after about four years (the arrival of a real life baby - now toddler - rather cut into my sim time). Chloe Curious has achieved her lifetime wish of woohooing with 20 different sims, and is now wondering what to do next (I expect the answer is find even more lovers). Her daughter Diana is nearly finished with childhood and will be choosing an aspiration soon, so I've been trying to work out what might suit her.

Meanwhile Lola Curious and family (wife Lilly and daughter Lucy) headed off for Tazemizu Village (or whatever it's called) on holiday. They had a nice time, but I'd completely forgotten what you're supposed to do at the secret lot, so they didn't manage that. When they got back, Lilly and Lola finally listened to Lucy's determined request for "kittens, please" and got two adult cats - Calicat and Einskaldir. Hopefully they'll get along and kittens might be in the future, but I'll have to work out how to encourage it as I have no idea right now.

I added Emerald Heights as a downtown to Procrastination-Pleasantview. I was mainly thinking of the Group Home girls and the Davenports, who fit well with the general ethos of Procrastination, but I'd forgotten how many other playable families come with that hood. Pleasantview is feeling a bit swamped, and I don't think Mortimer Goth is any too pleased about Caesar Rafferty suddenly lording it over him as Mayor. Plus there's another young man who claims to be a Goth. Mortimer is considering hiring a Private Investigator to look into that - the Goth name is not one to be taken lightly!

Link Larsen went on a date in the park with Denise Jacquet. Crystal Vu came and messed with both of them, so the date ended with Link fistfighting her while Denise stood aside all "It's nice spending time with you "


Brahe and Copernicus Sulsul grew up to teens - Brahe a fortune sim, and Copernicus a knowledge sim. After they had grown up, their grandfather Caligari Neighbour moved in with his two other grandkids in main Strangetown, since their mother Godspeed's working schedule clashed with their school schedule.

Going from eight people to four, the House of Fallen Trees suddenly felt a tad too big, and the lights never seemed to turn on properly. Since new living arrangements were to be made anyway, Piel-Divina and Champagne decided to let their kids go make some experiences on their own. Brahe's lifetime wish is to own five successful businesses, so an arrangement was made with the Ramirez family in Bluewater village to let Brahe live with them for a while and help at their shop in exchange for getting to earn some talent medals and get practical help setting up her first own business.
Copernicus in turn was to stay in the Curious house for a bit. His grades had gotten really bad, and he needed to get back on track especially since he wanted a parttime job in the medical career to start striving towards his own lifetime wish. In the Curious house, he'd get help with his studies and skill-building (and getting to stay in a cool house) in exchange for in turn helping Pascal's and Vidcund's children Chap and Rosalina with their homework and keep them company if needed.
Piel-Divina and Champagne traded one haunted house for another and moved into the Spectre household, where Olive knew that her time was coming and Ophelia wanted to move out after saying good-bye to her aunt.

Strummer Neighbour got a job so that she and her old mother Stardust wouldn't need to rely solely on Stardust's income. She really wanted a job in the slacker career, but after three days of jobsearching without finding an opening, she couldn't be picky and started working in intelligence instead. It'd be a good way for her to get more friends, too as she likes being social but is rather shy. Stardust on her end kept up a friendship with General Buzz Grunt, mostly for promotion reasons, but then they were suddenly best friends.

I’m so excited about this. I had a natural game occurring thrupple!! I had a bi male romance sim who had several girlfriends, but his favorite lover was the only gay male in town. I planned on moving them in together since the poor gay sim literally had no other options.

But I installed autonomous proposals, and one of his female lovers popped the question and he accepted. (I wasn’t playing either one of them! They were both npcs on a community lot!) so I was so crushed.

But throughout the rounds, I’d see the gay guy and the fiancé on lots together ALL the time. They would ignore everyone else and just be sweet to each other (platonic) abd if their shared lover was there, he’d stand in the middle between them and they’d pass him back and forth.

When I got to the fiancé’s round, I saw that she and the gay guy were BFFs. And if she invited one of them to her apartment, the other one would show up as a walk by.

So I decided to move them all three together after the wedding of the man and woman. There will be two double beds and the bi man won’t have his own bed. He’ll just sleeps wherever he woohooed last. I went through ACR personal jealousy and cheating options to make very sure nobody would get jealous.

The bi man’s LTW is to woohoo 20 different sims. His husband and wife are cheering him on and hope he achieves his goal.

Well, as I haven't played my Sims for a while it was a toss-up whether to play Belladonna Cove or my medieval Sims. Bernd and his family won. He's been promoted to Mad Scientist fulfilling an LTW, and his wife, Tara (de Bateau), is now the mayor. Meanwhile at her father's family, stepmother, Kimberley (Cordial) has become a judge. Her and Armand's two children are now going to private school, or Beatrice was - she's just left for university. It was nice to see them all again.

Don Lothario is having a midlife crisis as a result of having too many children. Nina just had his baby (who is named Rhett--I'll be disappointed if he doesn't turn out to be romance), and Cassandra, in a desperate attempt to hold onto her marriage, had his third child. Don suspects maybe he is not the great lover he fancies himself to be, but rather just a middle-aged dad. (What's wrong with that, Don? You're a good dad!)

Mary-Sue died in a horrible kitchen fire that Angela set, and now Daniel, rather than taking advantage of his newfound freedom, just mopes around the house and tries to make friends with his grandchildren. I like Grandpa Daniel.

I may have restarted again since my last update. In this iteration, Dina is alive. She decided Mortimer was never going to marry her, so she turned her sights on a younger, more naive Goth: Alexander. It worked. But Dina was carrying Mortimer's child when they married--a child with the alien skin. Alexander suspects the baby isn't his (but is instead his half-sister!!! good luck to me trying to keep these family relationships straight), so he is trying to get Dina pregnant again.

Thanks to some helpful advice on here, I was able to get a mod that enabled Lucy Burb and Beau Broke to fall in love, despite John having remarried Brandi after his divorce from Jennifer. Lucy has a daughter from a failed college relationship, but Beau doesn't mind the instant family.

I'm starting to get several teens, yay! For the first time, I've used the visitor controller to create a teens-only hangout like I saw in Pleasant Sims, and it is really fun to play. Atticus Goth (one of my favorites, son of Don and Cassandra) is carrying on with Juliet Burb, one of John and Jennifer's twin girls; they've been best friends since childhood. Jane Burb, the other twin, was childhood friends with Bobby Broke and they had a first kiss, but Jane is definitely bi and she may choose to go another way when she gets older. She thinks one of the Ottomas girls is pretty hot.

And happy news for Darren and Ivy--they had a late-in-life baby. And they are still happily boring. Dirk and Lilith had to get their own place because the Dreamer house was getting pretty crowded.

Trying to figure out if I want to deal with 7 children.

I had made a romance Sim to be a test Sim for several “Adult” mods I had downloaded. ACR Risky Woohoo apparently kicked in and she ended up pregnant.

She later used ACR’s booty call function to call the guy she had the most chemistry with, who is not the father of the baby. Since trying to raise a baby is a pain with one adult, I had her ask him to move in.

He has the LTW to marry off 6 children, so I’m trying to figure out if I want to deal with the baby she is pregnant with plus the 6 he wants to marry off or not.

Just put Mootilda’s “Moos Mews” bowling alley in my hood. The first sim that got to try in out on her round was a pleasure sim. She’s gained enough gaming enthusiasm for the secret lot. Her entire house is covered with photo booth pictures with almost every sim in the hood. She’s smustled so much that she can bust a move.
She somehow managed to make an enemy out of a random townie and he beat the crust out of her. She’s had 3 or 4 woohoo sessions — all with different sims. She managed to get herself pregnant in one of them.

The other playables love it too. The photo booth is constantly rocking around and the sims come out all proud of their public woohoo. They order drinks at the bar, fill the bar and floor up with plates of hot dogs. They stay until dawn — and only leave because the green stink clouds over the hot dogs tanks the environment score.

The place is so rowdy, I have to ban sims who cause more than one fist fight a night. Yeah I think the bowling alley is a hit!

So after my update about the happy Dreamers, I went and played Dirk and Lilith to get them settled in their new house. Lilith threw a birthday party for their youngest child. Darren and Ivy, Daniel, and Lucy were invited, and Dustin and Angela showed up as well. Lilith was feeling a bit saucy, so she pranked Angela and danced with Dustin. Then she wanted to meet someone new, saw someone walking by, and ran out to invite her to enjoy the fun. It was Cassandra Goth, who immediately came in and held hands with Darren in front of Ivy. BONG! Sigh. Dustin and Daniel also got in a fistfight. The party was a snoozer.

I just checked everyone's relationship panels and they are all mad at Darren and Cassandra. Even the baby. Only Lilith thinks it's no big deal.

The Sim City Council has become alarmed at the number of alien babies being born downtown and in the nearby suburb of Pleasantview, so they have issued a new decree. They realize that it is not the fault of alien babies that they are the product of experimentation by some technologically advanced species, but they cannot be permitted to mingle with the human populace. Alien children may be raised by their fathers but as soon as they become teens, they must first go to La Fiesta Tech for reeducation and then be relocated to the Area 51 District, where they can live separately but at peace. Aliens are not permitted on community lots outside their district, and intermarriage is forbidden and will result in exile. This is not great news for Dina; the appearance of her baby--which is Mortimer's but she is passing it off as her husband Alexander's--has betrayed her hidden alien genes.

Had to add this quick update! My bowling pleasure sim had her baby. I use a random name generator and allow it to go exotic instead of just common. My pleasure sim’s randomly generated name is Heidi. I rolled the exact same name for her baby!! Out of a database of thousands of names!

So she named the baby “Little Heidi” This sim is the ultimate pleasure sim. She’s the wildest, most frivolous crazy sim I’ve had in my game.

Andrea's (my made in CAS romance Sim) son with a downtownie just aged to toddler and has red hair out of no where. She now is pregnant with the baby of the downtownie she moved in, and he has been really good about taking care of Ethan even though it is very obvious that he is not his son.

Some of the premade Townies that came with the basegame hoods have dyed hair (like Kaylynne Langerak, who's a natural blonde) so maybe some of the Downtownies have that too?

In downtown Emerald Heights, Adam (?) King (the bachelor) was abducted by aliens within a Sim-hour of first looking through an indoor telescope, while Genesis Montes is happily living in an underwater apartment at 14 City Park Street. Strange times!

I've started doing proper rotational play, with a set amount of days to play for the households, crossing them off lists and so on. Really enjoying it so far.

Starting off in my elder collective, Baywatch Neighbour died of old age. But before that, he bought Cafe Petite. His cooking skill wasn't very high, so some other members of the collective helped him to bake some things to sell there. After his death, Baywatch left the cafe to his friend and married-in relative Brake Neighbour.

After all the hinted tension and drama about the Tinker's and their toystore, the first thing Melody did when their lot was loaded was to cheer over the toymaker bench and roll a wish to get a bronze medal in toymaking. Well then. Wanda and Stephen both wanted a baby and they got two. In the Swedish translation, Stephen is called Stefan and Melody Millan, so since all three of them had "an" somewhere in their names and I felt W and S would be the kind of people to like having matching names in their family, I named the twins Stellan and Melanie.

Olive Spectre reunited with the Grim Reaper. Ophelia married Johnny Smith, now Johnny Nigmos, and then moved into a house with him. They both wanted a kid and soon had a little son named Hector Nigmos. Chloe Curious invited Johnny downtown. Despite not knowing each other very well yet, they're definitely acting like siblings already.


Love Thy Neighbour seems to be back in a depressive slump, and with that comes the excercise bike obsession.
Picasso Melinder wanted to kiss Lovemore Logren so he asked her out on a date at Cafe Petite. Unfortunately the business had been going a bit too well, so a townie snatched the last cheesecake right in front of Picasso. The date went well, at least. Picasso eventually rolled the want to ask Lovemore to follow him home and then they woohooed, the first time for both of them. I'd forgotten it was Picasso's first day at his job in the criminal career, but they finished just in time for him to leave and Lovemore roamed around the house in her underwear and had a drink and lunch with Picasso's roommate Justice Larsen-Neighbour.


Broadway Larsen finished his second novel. He named it Bengt (a common name for Swedish middle-aged/older men). It was a bestseller. I think he's started writing yet another one, too.

Monsoon Neighbour wished for a robotmaking station, and his little brother Batty got the first toy robot he made (though their mother Roadnight enjoyed playing with it as well). Batty learned his toddler skills quickly with some smart milk, and eventually grew up into a child. Monsoon got a part time job in the athletic career to get closer to his lifetime wish.


Zelda Larsen got friend-adopted by a group of downtownies/townies who kept inviting her along on their outings. She and one of them became romantically involved with each other. Zelda gave her a little makeover and was exceptionally bad at it, it took her at least four failed ones before she eventually got it.


Savanna went out for dinner with her good friend Loki Beaker. They tried escaping the bill by fleeing into the photobooth, but to no avail. Stealth games really aren't my best genre.

Similar to this... Chet Caliente, son of Dina, married Sandy Bruty (both blondes) and had a redhead son.

Out of curiosity, I looked it up on the wiki... and Sandy is a natural redhead

There are a few deaths coming in Tinsel Town during the next few rounds after the one I'm playing, and I've been doing planning for them all, by designing the potential grave sites of those who are going to be dying, writing obituaries and personal histories (from memories) of all.

The obituaries will be featured here, unless anyone objects to such a piece. I'm just a reporter of the town.

Bobby Broke and the Burb twins just barely made good enough grades to get into college. None of them were at all interested, but I think their friend Atticus Goth persuaded them all to go with him. As the son of Don and Cassandra, Atticus is both handsome and smart and is destined to inherit the Goth fortune. It will be interesting to see who he chooses for a spouse. I sure hope it isn't one of the Ottomas twins! (They are at college, too.)

Don threw another in a series of calamitous birthday parties in my neighborhood, this time for his youngest son. He set a huge kitchen fire, during which he almost died. While this was going on, Mortimer was upstairs meeting the Grim Reaper in front of the wailing children. I think it was a good time. Afterward, Cassandra naturally wanted to have yet another baby.

Lovemore Logren worked on her skills and friendships with her colleagues Roadnight and Strummer Neighbour to hopefully get a promotion and spent the rest of her evening playing videogames, as usual. In the morning she went outside and cloudgazed while waiting for her carpool to arrive and was killed by a falling satellite.

One of Lovemore's fathers, Phoenix Logren, had a mental breakdown and the other, Robin Logren, quietly went and bought their old house to collect his daughter's remains. Her tomb was placed under a tree on the elder collective's lot where all Neighbour et al.'s are buried. The satellite, still smoking, was placed there, too. A bit morbid, perhaps, but everyone who knew Lovemore would know that she would've loved it.

Of course, Lovemore's sudden and early death brought to mind Storm Neighbour, the other Caliente/Neighbour-descendant who died too early back in Pleasantview. But it wasn't just that they had in common. They had both lived alone, worked in the intelligence career, and died in unpredictable and frankly bizarre accidents. And both accidents seemed strangely suited for their respective personalities and interests - Storm burned to death when her favourite hobby item, the train-set, suddenly caught fire, while Lovemore, a knowledge sim who loved science and had been willingly letting herself get abducted by aliens a few days prior to her death, was hit by a satellite. Further, it was revealed that while Storm wasn't alone on her lot when she died, her colleague and aunt Pepper who just barely avoided the flames, had also been in the intelligence career and followed Storm home after work.
Whether there really was something afoot or just coincidences, it was generally advised for people in the intelligence career not to live by themselves. General Buzz Grunt, who had plans of opening up his house for sims in the military career for training once he had retired, offered to also house intelligence sims in need of protection.