Nine years ago today, on 30th November 2012 Gloria Jones and her teenage son Andrew moved into the little house at 19 Chorus Court in Veronaville, with me as a very rookie new player trying to look after them. I don't know how we survived those first few days, but somehow we muddled through, and we're all still here, safe and well. Veronaville today is a bigger, better and brighter place than it was back then. Brighter, because all the lived-in houses there now have electric lighting throughout. (A surprising number of them back then had either no electric lighting, or just one light bulb for the whole house. For instance there's only one electric light fitting in the big house currently being prepared for the arrival of the Romanov family.)

Anyway the good folks of Veronaville feel they've plenty to celebrate. Andrew will be roasting the turkey for another big Thanksgiving meal. Probably not at Chorus Court but at a friend's house. Quite a crowd is expected there, but of course Andrew, Julian, Gloria and Garry will be high on the guest list.

Long live Veronaville!

Happy Veronaville Thanksgiving Day @AndrewGloria !

I just saw on tumblr that Leefish died.
Death sucks. :P
I hope they got hula zombies and a nice tropical drink.

I'm starting to feel like Ron Weasley in OOTP... "Anyone else we know...?" and then abject horror when someone more privy to news says "Yes." Probably because I saw the lit-wands-tribute gif when I went to Tumblr to look, but...yikes, this is getting close again. (And just to head off anyone who thinks this is a fine time to pitch a fit over an HP reference, I can offer up an unshared Tonks/Lupin lemon to bite into if you prefer.) Leefish made the first fridge-stockable deco food, which set the stage for owned grocery stores becoming interesting! Aside from her own creations, the site offered a platform for creators to showcase similarly innovative work -- I think we all have a favourite or plenty from there, or from derivative mods thereof.

That's really sad!
She was a supermod on here for a long time.

I wish I could click the sadness button like on Facebook, because I really feel sorry for Leefish, I have read his posts and downloaded his mods countless times.

How many years of my life have I waited for sims 2 to load?

I wish I had a 'seasons' button on the real life weather right now. It's snowing and I don't want it to do that. I'd much prefer that it was summer and hot.

And I'd use a weather vase to get a little more snow! I need it for a music video! I've waited a year to be able to film it Got the first snow today but it's not going to stay

Leefish died? That's so sad.

About 3 months ago.

I didn't know that. What happened?

I wish I had a weather controller like the sims do IRL. I'd make it snow in July

For those of you who may have missed Zarathustra's building contest, have a look:
https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=662510

I keep thinking about that incident that happened a few evenings ago when Julian caressed Jack Gill and they fell in love with each other. (I posted about it in the "Things I've Said while playing" thread.)

Andrew and Julian (both Knowledge teens) have been in a committed relationship for almost nine real years now, and I would have thought that Pescado's Romance mod would have kept them faithful to each other. Reading the RTFM for the Romance Mod, it seems that, if Jack had tried to flirt with Julian, Julian would likely have rejected it, but it was Julian who autonomously initiated the interaction, and Jack, a very promiscuous Romance Sim, will never reject such approach from a close friend. I dealt with the matter by using the Sim Manipulator to remove the Crush and Love flags and the memories relating to the event, but I'm not entirely happy with that -- it feels a bit too cheaty for me. I sort of accept that such things might happen when they eventually get to university, and then I'd be ready to help them work through it, but I really wasn't ready for it happening while they're still teens. And I certainly didn't expect Julian, whom I've always regarded as the steadier and gentler of the pair, to initiate things.

When I speak to him, Julian is quite defiant about the matter. He says, "I don't know why you are making such a big deal of this. All I did was stroke his cheek. It's not as if we were smooching or making out. I just wanted a little bit of intimacy, and Andrew wasn't there, so I couldn't do it with him. And Jack is very attractive -- even Andrew thinks so.

"It really doesn't make sense what I'm allowed to do and what I'm not allowed to do. I can hug him [Friendly Hug], I can kiss him [I have BoilingOil's "Kiss Cheek" -- despite its name it uses the Family Kiss animation, so it's really a very gentle kiss on the lips (or just beside them)], I can noogie him, I can spend an hour in a very erotic pillow fight with him, but all this fuss because I stroke his cheek!? Pull yourselves together and leave us alone. I bet even Andrew would like to stroke Jack's cheek.

"Seriously, I don't want to hurt Andrew, but I can't see how what we did can hurt him."

Andrew has had wants to flirt with Jack, but it was a very long time ago. But only a couple of weeks ago he wanted to flirt with Jihoon LeTourneau. Andrew calls these "temptations", and he's never acted on them.

I'm beginning to wonder if the way I play my Sims subjects them to a bit too much temptation. I encourage my Sims to make close, albeit platonic, friendships with other Sims. That includes encouraging Sims in committed relationships like Andrew and Julian, to make friends with other Sims who, like Jack, are both attractive and promiscuous. This was the scene in Gill's mother's bedroom a few hours after the "cheek stroking" incident:


Maybe I shouldn't be surprised if, when Sims are doing things like this, with my encouragement, they occasionally go a bit further, and start to flirt and kiss.

@AndrewGloria
Isn't it so that we tend to have a firm idea of the way "ideal" relationships should be, whether for our Sims or ourselves, when in fact complete absence of affection towards anyone besides the chosen partner is not only unrealistic but perhaps even unhealthy! If Julian had rolled wants to break up with Andrew after the incident, I would certainly consider it a signal of Julian falling out of love with Andrew which would have been very sad indeed. But if he didn't, I would agree with what he says. Maybe you (or Julian) could talk to Andrew and see how he feels about this. I think it is also important that Julian reassures Andrew that getting those crush and love flags for Jack, changes nothing about how he feels about Andrew. After all, many of us in long-term relationships are surely familiar with something similar happening. If Julian and Andrew really want to be together, something like this will only deepen their trust and strengthen their relationship.

I started A.I. painting my sims 2 townscapes on Wombo Dream. This got me inspired after one of the uploaders called Deastrumquodvicis did sim town paintings with the app and framed them as wall pictures for sims 2.

AndrewGloria: that's why I use ACR - setting Sims to be faithful & jealous or not. Even have a mod that lets a Sim tell another "let's just be friends", even if they used to be lovers.

Some of the premade sims probably have college degrees. I find it hard to believe that, say, Mortimer Goth does not have a degree. Perhaps SimNation doesn't honor college degrees for compatibility purposes unless University is installed?

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I've seen that, where they would have a memory of going to college, but not have the double row of positive wants. Or would have a high ranking job that SHOULD require a degree, So I use the bat box to "upgrade" them (gives the double wants, and memory). I've fiddled with various mods that change what careers require degrees, and what skills the degree wants. Like: doctors need a degree (with cleaning, mechanical, and charisma skills), but most jobs don't need college (crime, show biz, politics).

If somebody made a sims game with all the sims 2, 3, and 4 gameplay and features with mod ability, (well maybe not sims 4) and integrated that into a gigantic open world as a unique sims world similar to what zelda breath of the wild and skyrim have done with their worlds, the 2 best open world games ever, I'd buy it up faster than you can say sul sul. And die happy. :D

Thanks UnfocusedBunny! I know that Andrew for one understands that there are different kinds of love. He knows that the intense love he has for his mum is not the same as the passionate feelings he has for Julian. And he knows that friendship is yet another form of love. Andrew has a high concept of friendship: he believes that your friends are the ones who are there for you when the chips are down. But in practice the boundaries between these different kinds of love can get fuzzy, and I think this is what happened to Julian. Sometimes, even despite ourselves, we can start getting romantic, or even erotic feelings towards a friend. In fact almost all Sims' romantic relationships start with friendship. I suspect it's true in Real Life too.

Andrew himself has told me that my expectations of him are sometimes unrealistic. "The trouble with you," he told me, "is that you think I'm a saint. You keep putting temptation in my way and you expect me to always resist it. I'm not a saint -- I'm no better than you. I don't know how long I can keep this up." I was trying to persuade Andrew to make friends with Dean Cameron, who is one of the promiscuous gay teen set. "Dean is very attractive, and I know his kind. They want to take all their friends to bed. Yet you expect me to kiss him on the cheek and give him friendly hugs, and not develop any 'inappropriate' feelings towards him. I'll probably give in and do what you want, but don't you dare blame me when it all goes pear-shaped."

So I really shouldn't be surprised that Julian eventually yielded -- just a little -- to such a temptation. If anything I thought it would more likely to be Andrew who would succumb. I'll certainly help the boys to talk things over, and I'm confident that their love for each other is more than strong enough to see them through this. I think what they really need is a proper date together, and let everything else -- even homework -- wait. They haven't had a date for a while. They once had a date that was only "good" because Andrew didn't give Julian time to go to the toilet, but all their other ones have been dream dates. And every date they have solidifies and strengthens their relationship. And, for myself there's nothing in my whole game I love more than watching my two favourite Sims enjoying a date together.

Thanks @grammapat ! I think adding such a big mod might be a bit much for my game. I have quite a few romantic mods including even Chris Hatch's bouquet for my more uninhibited Sims. (Or for more uninhibited occasions!) All in all I think I've got romantic relationships in my game pretty well exactly where I want them. Even this incident was a little reminder to me that my Sims are "only human"! I don't think I really mind that it happened.

I'm very interested in that "lets just be friends" mod. I suppose it's what I was trying to achieve by deleting the love and crush flags, but I'd much rather do it in-game. with a mod. I think it would be especially good for teens, who should be able to make mistakes in relationships without it messing up their whole lives. Any chance of a link?

I think that Sims are sufficiently like us that they can really help us to understand ourselves. My Sims have certainly helped me.

The other day, I adopted a kitten, but it just wouldn't eat! I searched online and the only thing I could find was a thread saying they have to be trained to eat pet food. Well, nothing worked, it almost starved to death and then... I found out that the bowl was apparently turned the wrong way against a wall. :/

Sim. World. Problems.

This was the version I used to use, if you're still looking for it

I've just downloaded and installed it, and it appears to be working. (There's nobody that I want to split up at the moment. ) I'll use it in future for fall-in-love "accidents" like the one between Julian and Jack. I won't delete the memories in future; I'll leave them in place. After all the incident did happen.

Thanks for the link! And thanks grammapat for mentioning it!