Junior Mann wakes up, wants to talk to Mary and Candy. ACR says Allyn. Okay. He goes to work the General Store, comes home, wants to throw his daily party and talk to Candy. Okay, invite guests. Candy, um, no Valentine, (Lana's having an affair with Valentine and it's Rich's day off), no Rhett, okay, Goldie, oh, good, Beeches. Sandy, Hamilton, Daytona, Ginny, but Hamilton's mad because of Penny so skips. Okay, drama free party list. Got that. Talk to Candy, um, now he wants to dance with Daytona and Ginny and prank Ginny. Sigh. End of day, no romantic wants for anyone, ACR says Candy now, and he wants to become friends with a bunch of customers whom he does not bolt.
Make up your mind, Junior! Well, he's doing well with the general store. And I stopped there early, because they're about to go to Twikkii (Lana's fault, she wanted a vacation home) and I didn't want to play vacation through that late. So tonight the Manns can go on a vacation.

Some sims. She's not showing yet, but Candy is pregnant by Junior again. I . . . don't think that's going to work any better the second time, Candy, unless you roll a want to propose to the man! He wants a gold restocking badge and a level eight business, and you aren't either of those!

In the last couple of days I've played five households through the winter.

At the Ottomas house, nothing big happened. Joe Graham got a promotion to level 6 of the business career. Samantha seemed stuck at level 5 of law enforcement - she's had the needed skills, friends, and performance since the start of my previous rotation, and thanks to dates she's been going to work with high needs and a platinum mood. Sharla topped the teen education career; unless she gets fired, she's got the scholarship she wanted. Dora still hasn't died and is now listed as being 69 and very little of her bar is unfilled. The four children on the lot are doing well at school and playing a lot of catch.

The mining family is also my challenge lot of having a pregnancy every season. Most of winter was spent trying to deal with toddlers and help with homework. Only a little bit of mining was done and Flannan turned blue with cold before I took pity on him and brought him inside. They didn't sell any ore during the winter as their stock was buried. They started the season with three toddlers and an infant, and ended the same way. There was one day with four toddlers, then midwinter saw the tenth child born and the oldest toddler had a birthday. Jane quickly got pregnant again - she seemed to be getting sick and having more motive drops than my other pregnant sims do. The second last day of winter had their eldest child age to teen. I rolled dice to determine aspiration and he ended up pleasure/grilled cheese, which suits him very well, as does the LTW of becoming a celebrity chef. His preferred hobby is cuisine and he has high interest in food, toys, and entertainment. He'll be helping with the mine and selling ore when not making sandwiches - I plan to have him open a sandwich shop as an adult.

Allegra Gorey seems to like living in the fishing cabin. She's got just enough space for her bed, easel, computer, a chair and a bookshelf. When she aged to adult, she was in a floral sundress - instead of changing that, her hair, glasses, and makeup have been softened to suit the new dress. She spent most of her time painting, but did meet a couple of her neighbours. One ex-tenant hung around the lot for a long time - he'd moved out to go to university and an apartment townie took over his room, but he wouldn't leave, and looks like a teen. I can't recall if I moved him into a dorm or if he's still in the student bin, but I hope he leaves after I've played his household. The other ex-tenant, Jane Stacks, left properly and hasn't been hanging around, but I know I played her household for a few minutes while I was shuffling college graduates about into new households and homes. Anyway, Allegra had a good winter. She went downtown a couple of times with friends who invited her out. One outing, Castor Nova invited her and they went to the cemetery downtown. The group also included Ashley Pitts, Jane Stacks, Kevin Beare, and Allegra's enemy, Brittany Upsnott. There was kicky bag, dancing, and poking and shoving, and then three ghosts came out. Castor got scared, wet himself, and had a good memory for it. The outing ended shortly after that, with Castor commenting that it had been a great time and they should do it again. Allegra also visited the arts and crafts hobby lot, and now has a crush on the instructor there.

At the Newson's, Gavin has left for college and Ginger's baby is now a toddler. Ginger is still helping everyone else get their homework done, but is struggling to raise her grades so she can go to college in the spring. She finally got the marks to B, but her winter was miserable. Between her homework, helping with homework, toddler care and teaching toddler skills, and making food, she was tired most of the time and she wasn't rolling easy to fill wants. Things got easier for her when Gabriella and Gallagher aged to teen - Ginger was able to go out, have fun, and get her aspiration meter up a bit. Gabriella became a knowledge/pleasure sim with a want to max 7 skills. Gallagher is now a family/romance sim and wants to reach his golden anniversary. I got them a restorable car to tinker with - I plan for them to be the owners of a garage and car sales center, and possibly a gas station or bus terminal.

The last household I played was my doctor family, the Farrells. They have started building a small hospital - it currently has free floor tiles layed out on the ground as I try to decide on a floor plan. The only part with walls is where I know I want a bathroom. The only furniture is a few counter sections in what will be a reception area, a cash machine, and a food display case filled with individual bowls of Grandma's Chicken Soup marked for sale. I haven't opened the lot yet, but wanted the community lot selling soup there in case it's needed. Their home business is open and is better decorated and more functional. I'm running it as a bandatron business, with the entire downstairs area open to customers/patients. Half the house is set up as a clinic, with the living room acting as a waiting room. There are two tiled exam rooms - one has the medical career reward in it, the other has a microscope, an exam bed, and an eye chart from PC Sims that charges sims and opens the makeover screen. I've got custom makeup injuries, and some bandage accessories, and patients can leave looking like they had treatment for an injury or got new glasses. One townie got new sunglasses, Herbert Goodie has reading glasses, and Georgia Newson broke her wrist in a kickball accident - I'll remove the cast if she visits the doctor's lot again, or when I play the Newsons in the summer, but she's going to have the cast for the spring rotation of the Newsons (no piano until the arm heals).

Personally, the Farrells are doing well. Dr. Colton Farrell has been writing more scifi books, while his son Jordan has been trying to get abducted by aliens again. Dr. Hannah Farrell took up violin, as she wanted to build her creativity and wasn't interested in writing or painting. Triplets Candice, Wes, and Petra aged to teen on the last day of winter. Petra rolled a want to get the scholarship for being abducted by aliens even before the aspiration selection screen came up, so I made her a knowledge sim, with a popularity second - she's very outgoing and nice. Actually, she's very everything - her lowest number of points in any personality category is 6 in neatness. She wants to be mayor, and right after aging up she headed outside to summon aliens. Wes also rolled a scholarship want - young entrepreneurs, so he's now a family/fortune sim, with a LTW to be a business tycoon. Candace didn't have any wants or interests that directed me to a particular aspiration, just that she's serious and shy, so I rolled to choose between family, knowledge and fortune for a primary, and then rolled to choose from among all options for a secondary. She's now a knowledge/romance sim, and wants to become a media magnate. Her first roll of wants after aging up included a want to go jogging - so she went out for a jog in a snowstorm. Everyone was in bed except Petra when the aliens finally showed up. I normally save and go on to the next household when the seasons change, but that happened before Petra was returned. I waited until she was back home and had applied for her scholarship - the want for the scholarship was replaced by a want to meet aliens. I think Petra and Jordan are going to have to take turns with the telescope.

I changed Rose Greenman's clothes

Johnny Smith and family: Johnny and his wife Naenae are well into elderhood now. Naenae never found out about his illegitimate children with Starla (who was her friend). His oldest illegitimate daughter (Venus) blackmailed him for 20k to not tell his wife and he paid the money. However, his oldest son (Jupiter) did find out quite by accident. He and Venus just happened to be at the same party. His race of aliens left the galaxy long ago and abductions these days were perpetrated by four other races of aliens. So he was a bit surprised to see Venus. When he asked her about her parents, she mentioned her late mother but said she didn't know who her father was. There was only one man it could be, though, and he remembered that a woman named Starla used to visit his mother. He debated confronting his dad or telling his mom, but in the end, he did neither. They were so happy together, plus he was living with them now that he was back from Uni. They had even planned to leave the house to him. So he kept his silence and concentrated on finding a wife. His younger brother had already been to Uni and back. His parents had bought him a house next door and he was already engaged while Jupiter still struggled to find a girl he liked.

One day, his parents decided to invite some girls over for him to meet. However, the girl they were hoping he would like kept making passes at the other girl at the party! It was pretty funny. She was a townie and I had no idea she was a lesbian. Anyway, this was depressing for Jupiter. One day, he called up a girl he had a crush on in Uni and she came over. She had just graduated and was going into the military career. They talked for hours and she came again the next day, and the next, etc. Even though he is bit older than her, they got engaged and had a wedding at home in the backyard. Later that night, she got pregnant. Johnny and Naenae are so happy, they have wanted grandkids for years! The happy couple: Jupiter and Beverly Anderson Smith

Not intentionally! There's 38 sims just between the Marshalls and Kraemer families at the moment (not including those who have been adopted out) and I believe they easily take up half the number of playable sims. I'm thinking I may have to tightly intermarry some distant third cousins in the Marshalls at some point (I would joke about them starting in a rural farming community already anyway...) just to keep the family branches down.

I'm also thinking I may need to readjust the ideal kids formula. Scarlett's kids do seem to have similar personalities to her, and with a few Family teens I'm getting those that want 8 kids just like her.

--

I forgot just how chaotic a household with four adults and nine kids could be -- a result of moving in two sisters together. Still not as chaotic as some households (like the Kraemers or the original Marshalls household).

Ash grew up and rolled double Family and got the LTW to get to the top of the Law Enforcement career. Don, the eldest of Meadow's kids, also headed off to university the same day. It feels like he's been around in my game forever (due to me originally playing with much slower aging).

Dahlia grew up the next day, being an average motivation sim. The fact that she has her grandfather's eyes makes her pretty interesting to me, though I've almost decided that her older brother Garth (who also has the same eyes) is likely to be the house heir.

Nothing much else really happened; it seems like although Lilian has a want for ten kids she may not actually achieve it. Joseph is still looking for an Art job with no success, though he is doing okay in an Entertainment job.

So the Manns went to Twikkii, where Junior double bolted ALL the ladies but rolled romantic wants for none. He began the vacation with Penny as his One on ACR. He did want to befriend two of the locals, and did that, and threw a hula party. Lana had bought a vacation house, so they stayed there. Rich wanted and got his new massage skill, Lana kept rolling itty-bitty wants and totally impossible wants--so she spent the vacation hanging in the sauna and hot pools, because she wasn't going to earn $$$$ or buy another vacation home, and Junior still doesn't want to get engaged. She rolled no wants for Valentine, but lots of little Rich wants which were reciprocated, so they happily tickled, back rubbed, dirty joked, and classic danced to keep their aspirations high. While Cara, one of the locals, picked up an interest in Junior, she didn't make any moves, and no amount of scoping room could lead him to want a date.
They got home, still with half a day to go on their rotation and Junior's One Sim is back to Garden Club Allyn. But his want panel is all business and best friends. He really loves that popularity secondary. I'm beginning to wonder if he's waiting for his folks to die, or Mary's husband Skye to die, or something! He's crazy about Launa Lee when he's at the Harts . . .

Today we celebrate the birth, at Rivendell, of Elrond's two sons, Elladan and Elrohir. Their mother, Celebrian, is the daughter of Galadriel. According to the book, Celebrian was on her way to visit her mother when she was attacked by orcs, and received a poisoned wound. Her sons rescued her, and Elrond cured the wound, but she "lost all delight in Middle-earth, and the next year went to the Havens and passed over the sea".

Well, now. I cannot hope to follow the book accurately. My game has vampires, zombies and werewolves, but no orcs. Sims suffer 'flu and food poisoning, and the occasional axe in the forehead, but no poisoned wounds. Something dreadful must happen to Celebrian, to make her abandon her home, children and husband.

Perhaps I should create a sub-hood called 'The West', the final home of elves who weary of Middle-earth. I wonder what it could look like? Tolkien gives us no clues.

Visited the deBateaus for the first time in my megahood. The first thing I did was to move them out of the apartment and into a house (241 Desmond Drive) - they have lots of money and thanks to no20khandout I'll soon need all the apartments for young families who can't afford to buy a house.
Being a knowledge Sim Tara wanted to skill, skill, skill, but she also dreamed of her first kiss. She's already met six different teenage boys while I was playing other households but has negative chemistry with all of them. I think she's trying to tell me something - like that I should go and find her a nice girl for that first kiss instead. Being gay is still rather frowned upon by the "old" families like the deBateaus, but then again so is adoption, so I'm sure Armand won't mind. I might need to find a way for Tara to still have biological children though - I love her face and it would be a shame to lose these genetics.

The Greenman's celebrated Founders day with a party then turned right around and celebrated Daisy's birthday with a party. She grew up as a Romance Sim and is ready to cause some drama in the small town I am trying to do rotation but the Greenman's are in Spring so I have to stick with them for a bit.

The Exodus family is in disarray. Gregorian always said he would never leave the Rat Pits apartments. Yeah, they were small, but they allowed him to save money and encouraged him to hang around outside and pick up the chicas. He said it when he had himself cloned and had quadruplet daughters. He said it when his new wife moved out because she couldn't take it anymore. And he even said it when the plague rushed through the complex, taking three of his children and leaving him with only Aster.

But, he finally had enough. Aster aged up into a rather homely teen, but she had personality plus. So naturally she attracted the neighbor's boy. One day while Gregorian was busy at work, Aster and the boy did a little multiplication homework. When Gregorian found out, he was livid. He can still barely speak to Aster, and if he sees that boy again, he might stomp him into the ground.

So, he took some of that money he had been saving and bought a house. House rules include that Aster can not call or have any contact with Tang (the father of her little boy). The child support money is the contact she is allowed to have. Right now, with Gregorian calling shots, Tang is not allowed to have anything to do with the baby, at all.

Gregorian is determined to help Aster through this. He will let her live with him and will help her raise her child. But, he did use her college money to buy the house. Why should it cost him? And, he is still really not talking to her.

Will the baby melt his heart? Will Aster ever be able to grow up and live her own life? Will Abbey, the dog, ever fetch the stick? Stay tuned.

I forced myself to play today, I've been building lately instead of playing and will be going out of town so I knew I had to play or I'd regret it.
----------

Ashley and David Robinson got news that they were expecting! They were not expecting that, I figured she was done having kids since she hasn't been on birth control and they haven't gotten pregnant since they had their twin daughters. It'll be a big age gap (they're one day from being teenagers) but oh well, maybe they'll finally have a boy.

David took one of the twins for a walk and went to the local cemetery. He has been wanting to see a ghost but nothing popped up that night. They came back the next evening and Brooke ended up getting spooked by the ghost of her great-grandmother Kieran Robinson. Brooke got so scared she wet herself! It ended up being harder than I thought it would be, even if the ghosts were nearby they wouldn't get scared. David had no luck again, I guess the ghosts have to purposely scare you which makes no sense to me because lord knows if I ever saw a ghost I'd get scared regardless if it was trying to spook me or not.

The girls had their birthday party and grew into teenagers. Nicole is a family/knowledge aspiration with a lifetime want to reach the top of the science career and Brooke is a fortune/popularity sim with a lifetime want to become a celebrity chef. Nicole ended up growing into her face and is actually prettier than her sister now.

Ashley woke up around 3am and went into labor. She had a baby girl and they named her Kylie. :lovestruc

Tina Traveller started the winter by waking up with wants to sneak out with three different friends, but she came home from school with one of those friends and rerolled to wants to become best friends and to improve her charisma. She spent most of the evening filling the best friend wants, and potty training her half-alien brother. Herbert Bigfoot spent a couple of days with the flower arranging station, and has enough stock to open a store. A genie lamp was dropped off for him, and that gave him enough funds to afford the Bluewater Village flower shop, so he'll be opening it in the spring. On the second day of winter, Tina was surprised to find her mother visiting when she got home. Tina tried to interact with her, but Trisha was too focused on playing with Tina's pet bird so chat got dropped from the queue and Tina went to shower. While Tina was showering, her mother tried to talk to her but gave up to play chess before Tina came out. I decided Tina was feeling slightly resentful about the divorce and didn't want to talk anyway; Tina went to fill a want to call someone. Trent came home and was not happy about Trisha being there. Their relationship had recovered to about 0, but they started irritating each other autonomously right away. Their daily relationship was back down to about -40 or -50 before I sent Trent to bed. Trisha had dinner with Herbert Bigfoot (he set fire to the kitchen while trying to make lobster again) and then left. Trent woke up wanting to go on a vacation, so he left Herbert and Tina to watch Zekiel while he went back to Twikki. On his visit to Twikki right after the divorce, he'd gotten a crush on a local, and he called her for a first date - before the date meter had moved past good, they were both in love. At great, both had wishes to get engaged, so they did. By the end of the date, both wanted to get married. Trent took Daisy's last name of McCarthy (I try to vary the last names of my playable households, and Tina and Zekiel will carry Traveller) and after he got home she came to visit and then moved in. Daisy is a family sim and into nature; she got a job as a gardener and ended the winter pregnant. I'm not sure how Tina will deal with the new step-mother and sibling - she's good with the alien half brother, but this might be pushing it and she might move in with her mother and Julien Cooke in the spring. I'll roll dice to choose how Tina interacts with both Daisy and Julien.

Emma starts her (Self played) Preschool/daycare in a few days!!!!! She is one anxious toddler!


Stacey and Tracey are STILL trying to figure out their Mom. Now there's talk within the family of Karone (Mom to the boys Stacey and tracey and Emma) going halvsies on an abandoned (self made) school building on the edge of town and cleaning it up and running it as a school for sim kids who otherwise may not HAVE a chance for a good education. The family would run it together (the adults except Grandma who is happily retired lol) .

John Jr and James are just days away from becoming toddlers! EXCITEMENT! I saved and did some cheating to see what they'd look like as adults and I was right the first time. James is going to grow up looking JUST like Grandpa who he was named for.

John Jr is going to look like his daddy!

Daddy John is busy as a worker bee! Yard work at the end of summer rotation SUCKS

Plus it has been raining a lot so he's behind! He had to move his prized tomatoes into the greenhouse because of all the rain! (wth help from the move objects cheat)


He took Stacey and Tracey fishing over the weekend and the girls had fun but I caught them thinking about Grandpa a time or three.....they really miss him so much.


Grandma is doing MUCH better she sews and helps Karone in the kitchen and spends time with her grandkids.

She's also got an orange grove growing in the orchard.

last I saw of her she was teaching Karone how to make her special chicken soup for when the family feels sick.

P.C. and new cat Timmy are fast friends. they nap together and spend time happily random meowing together.

Sunshine has discovered the joys of being an only dog again nao that her puppies have homes. it's the life of a mama dog I guess. but she doesn't seem to mind. One lives just few houses down and we see her when her new family takes her on walkies.


the girls have new clothes for school (Including little emma) and are amused.

Soon as I"m done editing everything up school will be in session.

I'm coming up to my neighbourhood's bicentenary, and I've got it all planned. Instead of playing 2199-200 as a single rotation, I'm going to split into four thus:

1: Play 2199 through to about 7pm in 2200, ensuring that everyone is at home, ready to tog up, and with as many need bars as possible maximised. Late-working sims to take the night off wherever possible.

2: Go through each house in turn to tog everyone up in fancy dress (so I can finally use all the mediaeval CC I've downloaded).

3: Play 2200 for each house, starting by sending all the togged up sims out on the town, then play through the rest of of the year/day until the evening of 2201. Lots of meeting new people whilst looking a bit silly. Should make for some colourful additions to the snapshot collection.

4: Go round again to tog everyone down back into normal clothes. Party's over, back to the regular grind.

And because this is going to take time, I don't want any distractions. I particular don't want any sims to die just on the eve of the big party.

So I'm barely halfway through the first circuit and three of them have popped their clogs already. Grrr etc.

I recently create a new Sim, Nadia Osmirasis, who has been having a tough time as of late. She aspires to become a celebrity chef, and has been working hard to climb through the ranks of the culinary career. However, I think she's managed to work about 12 days straight! Each and every time she's been promoted, it pushes her weekend back, and the change of hours always line up to being something that are totally out of whack with her sleeping pattern. Needless to say, she's tanked in her aspirations, she's struggling to make ends meet, and she's yet to find a gentlemen suitor to hopefully ease the financial and social burden placed on herself! Poor girl!

The weather was particularly annoyed today. A brief thunderstorm occurred, and lightning just so happened to strike a tree right as the rain ended. The poor tree caught on fire and nobody was there to extinguish it.



By the time my Sims managed to reach it, it was too late. The tree was reduced to rubble.

I finished my first family rotation in the rebuild!! While nothing short of a labor of love, this rotation with the Wabashes has reminded me of why I wanted to start anew in a fresh 'hood. Anthony and Luell welcomed in bouncing Baby twins - Hazel, and Anthony III! Finally! Lenora, Harper and Rhea have all celebrated their teen birthdays, and at the end of their turn the entire family welcomed in Baby Girl while Anthony and Luell have yet to decide on her name. It's been busy At the Wabash house, and there's still work to be done training these simmies not to hang around the beds constantly.. But maybe it was worth it in the end. The build a legacity challenge lives on as we enter gen 3!

My ecologist and fisherman finally opened a fish market in my shopping sub-hood. The lot is a beach lot with neighborhood decor docks and boats overlapping the lot. The market is on a deck and is roofed over, but the only enclosed rooms are a tiny sitting area and a bathroom. The rest of the lot has an eating area and a bit of fishing and beach decor - I want to have more, but I had to remove some of the beach and fish-related cc as it was making my open underneath modular stairs disappear from the build catalog. The second set of twins in that house has aged to teen - Michael is fortune/family and wants to own five businesses and get scholarships, Grady is knowledge/fortune and wants to max 7 skills. Grady also rolled a want to get the scholarship for having been abducted by aliens - so he was. I have mods for teen pregnancy, but not by aliens, so I rolled a die to see if he was going to get pregnant or not - 1 in 6 chance, and he got pregnant. One of his closest friends as a was a townie, so I aged her up with him - he got a want to talk to her and to go on a date, so they went out together. She's also knowledge, and rolled a want for him to meet aliens again during the date. She doesn't know about the pregnancy yet. I'm considering moving Grady and his girlfriend into an apartment together - the house currently has 8 sims and a cat, and not a lot of space for a baby. The teens and children all share a loft area lined with bunkbeds, and Grady has an indifferent relationship with his mother (best friends with everyone else in the house, though). I don't really want another house with just teens and a baby though - maybe I'll build another cottage on the lot instead. There is room for that if I move a few trees.

Jessica, the older sister who had been interested in the same girl (Tina Traveller) as her twin brother is now interested in a dormie that my playables have otherwise hardly interacted with. That completely defused a potentially interesting triangle, but her brother Jason is determined to create some sort of drama. Despite being in love with Tina, he spent winter getting all sorts of wants about Gabriella Newson, who had been a child the last time I played this lot, but aged up earlier this rotation. He's not in love with her, but does have a crush on her - and he's romance. Who knows what he'll want to do or who he'll be interested in by the next time I play this family.

Julien Cooke and Trisha Traveller are still trying to get their restaurant going. Trisha's cooking skill is finally high enough that she can cook most of the things I'd like their restaurant to serve, so they'll be opening in the spring (she's at level 9 cooking). Julien keeps rolling wants for promotions and keeps not getting promoted - I don't know why not, but am assuming it's a matter of probability and unlucky dice rolls. He and Trisha had a lot of dates and were in great moods all winter, but they still don't want commitment. Trisha didn't have any wants to talk to Tina this rotation, and I didn't see Tina walk by the lot (though Trent came by to kick the trash can). When I was playing with Tina and Trent's lot, Trisha kept visiting them and walked by a lot; I assumed Tina (BFFs with her mom) would reciprocate, but I guess not. I had been considering moving Tina in with Trisha and Julien, but I don't think I will unless Tina autonomously develops a bad relationship with her step-mom or with the expected baby; Tina's a lot closer to her father than her mother.

Elena Lawrence grew to a teen, rolling double Family with the LTW to become Captain Hero. Yes, this is identical to Ash Marshalls who is her biological cousin.

Elena apparently has interest in another playable sim, August Vanderpol. Elena might be a better fit class-wise (and also age-wise) than Dawn Wegner, but...we'll see. I'm trying not to hurry and rush any relationships.

--

In the Marshalls (3) household, right next door to the Lawence household, it was also a quiet time. Rowan got promoted to Investigatory Journalist (Journalism level 8) and Janie got promoted to Scatmaster (Natural Science level 5).

Rachel grew up on the Wednesday, rolling Fortune/Popularity and the LTW to get to the top of the Architecture career. Rowan got promoted via chance card again to Magazine Editor.

James still has three days to go before he turns teen.

--

Veronica Stultz got promoted up to Hand of Posiedon in what is probably the quickest and easiest TOC achievement in Cresdale so far. Helps that she's high motivation, skilled a lot as a teen, and graduated with a high GPA. Her next LTW is 20 best friends which should be easy enough (and, I admit, easier if it had been in the old 'hood).

Though apparently some sims are hit with risky woohoo a lot, and others aren't. Veronica has only one risky pregnancy so far, and that ended in abortion, and she's been with Jason for something like ten sim years. I've checked and double-checked her token stats and she's all fine, she's just...not getting hit by the RNG.

Of course, I say that then right at the end of the rotation Veronica gets pregnant. However, like before, she rolled for an abortion.

--

I got a bit of a smile on my face for the Mann household, as it means I get to try out my fancy stacked apartment lots (two community lots, then an apartment lot moved on top of it). I still need to send my sims to the community lots but it saves a lot of space.

The apartment itself is a lot roomier (but also more expensive) than Emmanual's prior apartment -- probably about twice the size.

Emmanual got promoted to Smuggler (Criminal level 9) and invited over one of his love interests for a woohoo after work. He pretty much spent the rest of the rotation skilling up and re-inviting his lover over. No surprise kids just yet.

Rhett and Vidcund Hart were gearing up for a big change, and Vidcund stayed home from work to organize the data on what different family members wanted in a new home in a way that would be useful to the architect. The plan was to buy a lot on The Hill from the family, do a lot of site engineering, and the nomadic Harts would finally have a home of their own!

She was interrupted by a phone call from Oliver Specter, who told her he had information about the vanishing of her best friend (and mother of one of Rhett's children) Joan Mole, but it wasn't something he could explain on the phone so could she come over? And not tell anybody because if he's right this could be dangerous? Vidcund argued about the not telling, but since Joan's disappearance coincided with the biggest data heist in GS Uberhood history at the phone company installation where she worked, so that Joan is assumed (by the government, not Rhett; Rhett will fight you on this point) to have been the spy that pulled it off, the possibility of danger could not be discounted. Nor could the possibility that the old man was hallucinating, in which case it might be urgent for her to get over there and see what he was going on about before he hurt himself. So she agreed.

But Trent had overheard her half of the conversation and demanded to know who was trying to get her to keep secrets from Dad. And Trent is one of the kids who grew up thinking of Joan as "Mama." So Vidcund told him where she was going and why and begged him not to mention it to the others until she's found out exactly what Oliver was talking about.

So she went over there. Oliver greeted her in the yard and dragged her inside, saying she'd have to see for herself. He took her back into the furthest recesses of the house, where even Orpheus never went, and showed her into a tiny dark windowless room off his bathroom, lit only by the light of a strange fire under a steaming cauldron. "Look at all that and tell me if you see what I see," he said.

So Vidcund tried, examining the cauldron and the handwritten book on the podium, but the substance in the cauldron burned her eyes and lungs, the writing in the book wasn't Joan's, and the neat labels on the urns in the back, names of people whose disappearances had been blamed on aliens, gave her pause. And then she realized that Oliver had shut the door on her. And it was stuck. Or locked. And Oliver didn't answer when she called to him. And there were bones in the urns...

Much became clear. She tried to remain calm, but the toxic fumes from the cauldron were making it hard to see or breathe or think clearly, and though she probably could have picked the lock with her hairpin under better circumstances, she didn't have better circumstances. All she succeeded in doing was jamming the lock so that Oliver couldn't get it open to see Grim when she arrived. Which had been the whole point!

Grim did not like what she found in Oliver's secret room. They'd talked about this! She'd thought he was done! But it was too late for Vidcund, so she reaped.

Meanwhile, Vidcund had been gone so long Rhett had started wondering, so when Trent said she'd gone to the Specter place, he called over there. Oliver denied having called her at all and hung up. Barely had he done so when Grim returned, scolded him for impatience, and took him away.

The maid found him the next day, by which time Rhett was frantic and was already making a huge nuisance of himself with the local police - which are military police, General Fizz Grunt being the one in charge in Strangetown. (Just roll with it; the GS Uberhood has strange laws!) General Fizz doesn't like Rhett, with his hobnobbing with the Curious-Smiths and his connection to that infamous spy, "Joan Mole." So instead of searching properly for Vidcund, he was taken into custody and questioned. A cursory search of the Specter place did not turn up the secret room, and the General's paranoia led the investigation in a far more complicated direction. The story Trent told was assumed to be a lie of Vidcund's to cover up her real agenda, which was obviously something to do with the Alien Menace she and all her family worked for! (Although Fizz quite likes Charlie Curious-Smith...she thinks he's too dumb to be a conspirator.)

So Trent went out there himself, on the day that should have seen his off-to-college party, determined to find Vidcund and whatever the connection to "Mama" was. And he found more than he bargained for. Because "Joan" has been misusing her professional opportunities to keep tabs on the family ever since she left them, and when her best friend's disappearance made the news, she went rogue and did a little investigation of her own. Trent didn't recognize her at first, and when he did he was angry - who wouldn't be? They'd mourned her as dead all these years! - but when she explained the circumstances of her abandonment he forgave her. She showed him the secret room, the lock of which had yielded readily to her spy gadgetry, and asked him to give her twenty minutes, then call, first, his stepgrandmother, Mary Hart - who is a civilian cop in a different jurisdiction and positioned to give him good advice - and then his Aunt Goldie, the lawyer, tell them what he'd found - leaving out Joan herself, of course - and do what they told him to do.

Trent did not throw an off-to-college party. He got his dad out of jail, and he left for Sim State, using his scholarship to rent a small house, where he plans to begin the process of becoming a superspy himself, the better to bring down a corrupt and stupid government. The Harts are in disarray. Half the kids are angry at him for cheating on their mothers with Vidcund anyway, and Rhett is reeling. The whole point of marrying Vidcund (apart from the fact that he loved her; he'd loved all his babymamas, after all) was to have someone in place to make sure the kids were all right when he died! For Vidcund to die first was unacceptable! And he has not yet accepted it.

Meanwhile, Orpheus - horrified at learning of his uncle's secret life - donated the house to Strangetown for a cemetery. All the victims are safe in the graveyard now, except for Vidcund, whose urn is with Rhett. Fizz finally has closure on her husband Lyle's disappearance, but is having to eat a mountain of crow over her mishandling of the disappearances, and Goldie has started the process of suing Strangetown law enforcement for negligence. It'll be a class-action suit by the relatives of all the victims, placing the General in an even more awkward position.

Clearly, for the Harts to keep living next door to the General is untenable, and Rhett is in no shape to talk to architects about building Vidcund's house across from Vidcund's sisters and raising Vidcund's baby there, without Vidcund. Rhett doesn't remember deciding to move to Pleasantview, because he didn't. Gordon the Sympathetic Landlord found them a new place, might have been made for them, in a luxury apartment there, and the two oldest kids at home, Geoff and Angel, made the arrangements. He just went where they told him to go and signed what they told him to sign, and played with Valli a lot. Vidcund's toddler daughter Valentine is very smart, but doesn't understand what happened to Mama, and wakes up every morning looking for her...

This is a cruel, cruel challenge. I may have to go play the Curious household in my regular Strangetown, where Original Vidcund's wife Monica is about to give birth, to cheer myself up.

Been addicted to Cookie Clicker 2.0...anyways,

I've decided and have already made a new neighborhood called, "Moirai Edge." Basically, my simmies are to 'find their destinies and to have some sort of leadership over some or all of the people in town.' And once again, I've decided to have 'The Hills' ( the wealthy part of the neighborhood overlooking the town), the upper-class part of town (right below the hills), middle class part of town (in the flat plains area), beach/city area, farming areas, and a ghetto/trailer park area. Some of my sims will have the goal to reside on 'The Hills' and to have control over the working class. It's a rags to riches type of story with drama to screw over my sims (MWAHAHAHA!). Most of them live in trailer homes, one family lives in an apartment, and one lives in a two story home. There are ten families I've made, not including those living in special residential homes. There's a lovely group home for children, an all girls home to groom foster girls into sophisticated young ladies, an asylum where the dreaded Kaiser Von Strouser captures...urm, "diagnose" sims as "mentally ill" and "appoints" them to the asylum, and there's a police station with a crooked, sexist, bigot police chief rules over the town with injustice. I should build a town hall and a park later (grumbles). Oh yea, and there's lots of drama to be expected. I've also decided to have a little story to go along with it (to practice my writing abilities) and will be following and telling five sim families' (It might be cut down to three) stories. Each will have their own unique chapters. So, one sim family will be chapter 1, another sim family will be chapter 2, and so on. I think I will put this on my simblr???? Is there a fanfiction place for sims?

Anyways, there's the:

Adkins family: consisting of a mom, dad, teenage daughter, two sons, and two daughters. I've been playing with different variations of this family for several years; including in other iterations such as Sims 3 (and I think Sims 4). They are my farming family in case I feel like growing crops and managing farm animals (always have been for years and always will be). Unfortunately, this family is already starting to get on my nerves and it's very likely they'll meet demise...

Bolera family which are my Hispanic family. I really want them to gain wealth because I see a juicy drama waiting to happen...but I bet they'll get on my nerves too. There are two parents, I think two teens, two or three children, and a baby.

Castaway: The reason I gave them this surname was to pay honor to The Sims Castaway Stories...never played it, seen my friends play it, and this game really isn't my cup of tea. It looked fun at the time, however. I have created another variation of this family before several years ago. The Castaways are my adventurous family that also stands up to the wealthy class; very liberal folks. There are two parents, I think two teens and two children

Man, I love big families. Then, you have the Sumpter family. I've made another variation of them in the past, but I want this; hopefully, soon-to-be-rich family to start off in a trailer home and work their way to becoming rich. There's two parents, two or three teenage girls, and three or two female children. Yep, all girls and their mother cannot stand it! And just the other day, their dad went to a neighbor's home and cheated on his stressed out wife with A TEENAGE GIRL! Can't wait to see who will find out about this one! (Thank you to all the modders and cc creators for making my game more exciting!)

Finally, we have the mayor's family; the only family living in a two-story home. Now, I actually have to cheat in order to make him mayor (after that, no more cheating!...hopefully). He has six teens and are raising them all by himself. I originally wanted to do a separate challenge for them, but I needed a mayor. It felt so unrealistic having a new neighborhood with only a few families and no type of government to further add to the drama. This is actually a challenge I've made up and I'm doing with the Middleton family. It's complicated to explain:

Each teen (of his six kids) wants to be the next mayor; to have POWER. They have different aspirations ranging from Pleasure all the way to Popularity, and they also have three strengths and three weakness. Because of their strengths and weaknesses, if they were to become mayor, they will have three good things they will bring to the town and three bad things they will also bring to the town. For example, one of them, if they were to become mayor, will bring about religion in a conservative-like manner, but because of this, churches will not promote safe sex or any type of sexual teachings and teen pregnancies will sky rocket. In order for one of the current mayor's children to become mayor, they must reach level five in each skill (and then some in order to advance in college and in the political career), reach the top of the political career, get married, and have a possible successor. And just because they are the mayor's children, does not automatically mean they'll get the position. There could be another child, in town, striving to get the mayor's position and wanting the Middletons completely out of office! MWAHAHAHA!

Oh boy, I'm tired, and i'm writing a lot. But this is good practice for my dream as a writer. Why not share my imaginations with the world? Sims is such a good game to come up with unique stories (I do that anyways with a lot of games already). SO FREAKIN' EXCITED TO FINALLY BE DOING THIS!!! I think I'm going to go insane...

Danielle Simmons life was doomed from the start. After a horrible upbringing, she relocates to Riverside to make her dreams of having a family come true. If only it were that easy. She doesn't seem to connect with anyone. Even the matchmaker is no help. After several failed attempts of finding romance, she decides to go on vacation. There she meets a masseur named Sullivan. Sparks fly but she ends up leaving without a relationship.

Upon returning home she decides to start her own business. Around this time, she meets the garden club leader, Toby. Despite not being able to join the club, the two hit it off nicely and Toby ends up working with Danielle in her business before she decides to shut it down. Shortly after the two enter into a relationship and Danielle finds out she is expecting.

She is very happy but Toby doesn't seem to want a baby. Early into her second trimester she has a marriage. Hurt and broken hearted, she ends her relationship with Toby who doesn't take it well. He attacks her before leaving and Danielle decides to go on vacation again. She meets Sullivan again who tries to cheer her up. He later quits his job and the two go on vacation together at the beach.

Danielle becomes pregnant again and the two are ecstatic about it but soon after returning from their trip, she loses the baby again. Sullivan again cheers her up and the two end up getting married and getting pregnant again. Danielle forgives Toby for the attack but the situation is far from over.

One day he comes over and starts to fight with Sullivan before fatally stabbing him. He attacks Daniellee again and she loses her third baby. While she is upset and grieving over the loss of her husband and baby, Toby gets to work selling everything in the house, even Sullivan's tomb. He takes Danielle and moves into a bigger house in the neighborhood and keeps her locked in the house. Danielle is once again pregnant and finally has a baby girl named Sabrina. Toby tells her that he was hurt after she broke up with him following the loss of their baby. He doesn't want her to have a family with anyone else but him and that's why he did what he did. Danielle loves her baby but wants nothing to do with Toby anymore. But she is unable to leave since he has changed the locks to the house and has threatened to go to the police and tell them that she killed her husband after she found out she was pregnant.

With no one to turn to and no way to get out, Danielle is at a loss of what to do. In the meantime, however, Toby plans to have more babies with her whether she wants to or not. Shock, she's pregnant again.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo not Vid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate troubleshooting.

I've been testing combinations of mods and cc all morning, trying to find why some sims are getting promoted and others aren't. In my test hood, I set up a family of 5 with regular careers and played them using cheats to keep aspiration and motives high. One got to the top of his career and I gave him another, but then all 5 of them were stuck somewhere between levels 5 and 8 in various careers. I saved and removed cc - promotions happened. I put half the cc back, promotions happened. I removed that cc and tried the other half of my cc folder, and promotions were fine. I tried different combinations of cc and I thought I had the problem down to some sort of conflict between the chickens or gardening stations from plumbob keep and something in my hood decor folder - when both those folders were out, or only one in, promotions were fine with the test family. Then I tested the setup that seemed to work with a new household, and they couldn't get promoted, though the ones that had been stuck were now fine. Moving the family in and out didn't make a difference. I tried playing in different seasons, and sent some to work with eggs in their inventory and some without - having things in the inventory seemed to have an effect, but I couldn't repeat that with a third family.

In frustration I went back to my main game folder and opened the 'hood that started this. That folder still has all the cc and mods that I had to begin with, and I opened the Cooke household - Julien's been stuck at level 6 for a while. I sent him to work, and he got promoted - despite whatever conflicting cc was preventing it earlier still being in that file. The game is taunting me, and I'm nowhere closer to finding what the problem is than I was four hours ago.

For now, I give up - the game/files/mess defeats me. It's not a game breaking problem (I hope), and I'm tired of repeatedly loading my game and fast forwarding through my test families. I don't mind having sims get promoted more slowly and if promotions are too slow and I do want a particular sim at a higher career level, I'll just use simblender to set their career level.

After a long break from my megahood, I returned again, and it made me so happy! I just couldn't get into the stories of the custom sims I made for some reason. I just love the megahood too much with all of its different types of families and pre-existing drama that has fed into new drama over time. I don't think I'm good at playing neighborhoods comprised entirely of single sims, so I should stop trying

Anyway, the baby boom has finally settled down a bit after it got wildly out of control. I think I've finally got the quads, triplets, and twins odds set properly, haha. I've noticed that almost all of the babies being born now are the children of the original uni sims, with the exception of some sims who waited longer to have kids or random oops babies. Most of the sims who started out at the beginning of the adult stage are now halfway through or so. This rotation, the last of the sims who started as toddlers will be turning into teens, which means there will be a bit of a gap where nobody is becoming a teen for a few rotations. The college is also getting to be a little empty.

It was nice familiarizing myself with all the sims I haven't seen since December! It's also fun to remember where I left off and the events I'm looking forward to. Like Romeo Monty and Sandra Roth getting married, even though their aspirations are totally opposite and Romeo just had an illegitimate child and he also recently woohooed with Sandra's mother. And how that weird new relationship with Hermia Capp and her former uncle Albany Capp will turn out. And whether Tybalt Huffington will figure out that "his" baby with Heather is actually not his. And who poor Jodie Larson will end up, since she's had no romance in her life whatsoever and is purely focused on her job (I'm hoping she gets with Jane Stacks, whose husband recently passed away but is bi and I think would be compatible with Jodie). So I guess I've got a lot of catching up to do