I'm not sure if this is technically a story dilemma or not, but I'm not sure what I'm to do here.

So for a little bit of an explanation, this pertains to a weird, though not actually sure if it's weird, turn of events in my year old Pleasantview. Okay, so Tank Grunt got married to one of the children the Oldies adopted after Mary-Sue, her name's Tiffany, and took her surname. They have four children, but the relevant one is their second child, Marine, a teenage girl. Tiffany has a younger adopted brother called Zidane, who married Johnny Smith and had a son called James who is a teenager. Simple, so far. Ripp married Meadow Thayer and had three kids with her, the relevant one here is their eldest, River, a teenager girl.

So, what's the problem and why is the above information relevant? James triple bolts with River, his cousin's cousin... I'm not sure if it's technically incestuous, or not. Because I'm just imaging Marine showing up to a family gathering and then finding out that two of her cousins are hooking up with each other.

It's one of those things I'm just confused about. Is it not as gross as I think it is? Should I just allow it, or have them friendzone each other and find other prospects? They don't roll wants for each other, they just triple bolt, are crushing on each other due to autonomy, and are trying to woohoo when I'm not looking.

I have been mulling over this since it happened and with me being as indecisive as I am, I keep coming up blank. Does anyone have any ideas? If not, that's fine

Just remember this: it's a game, and there are no real-life consequences for cousin marriage-except to totally confuse the family tree. Nobody's going to have 3 feet or 6 noses, so it's a bit silly to get concerned about a non-issue, really.

But : if you really don't like the idea, friend-zone them and put them on friend status, to keep them from being romantically involved. Or you can change their turn offs and turn ons to do the same thing.

Unless a family is already pretty badly inbred, marrying a cousin's cousin wouldn't be a problem even in real life. And unless your neighborhood is huge, sim family trees are going to cross. This is a time to examine the source of your squick and interrogate your assumptions in order to figure out why the idea is uncomfortable for you. Most likely you'll realize that it's based on something nebulous and trivial and be able to dismiss it going forward.

It's barely possible that it's based on something real and traumatic, but that's not the way to bet (and if it happens to be, ouch, my sympathies, but on the other hand, you'd have to deal with it sooner or later and a sims game is a pretty safe space to start the process in).

Yeah a cousin's-cousin isn't going to be blood-related to the first sim. Not unless like Peni said they have some really bad inbreeding so that the cousin's cousin side is also blood related already. Not gross at all, awkward for the shared cousin? You decide.

I have a perfect example of this in my game. Roderick Kapitha is dating Kaylee Piper. Roderick and Kaylee share Xander Hart as a cousin because Xander's Dad is brother to Roderick's mother and Xander's mother is sister to Kaylee's father. But Kaylee and Roderick? No relative connection. Xander can suck it up if he feels weird his cousins from each side of the family is dating.

Ah, I just thought that it was incestuous for some reason, thank you all for the reassurance. Since they seem head over heels for one another, I'll see what they decide to do, as the hood isn't inbred to my knowledge.

Sounds good, and remember that in a Feudal Society being the handmaiden of a Royal Princess would have been a coveted position of honour, and would have been filled by a noble, such as Dina

Yeah it's not incest, River and James don't share blood, they're just cousins (second cousins?) from an aunt/uncle's marriage. Like the others have said, you could go forward with it just fine. If you find it weird (I do kinda but that's me), then you can just ignore. Depends on what you think.

However, if they do get together, they are contractually obligated to quote Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune and call themselves cousins. I don't make the rules.

I can't remember if I've talked about this household before, but I'm back round to them again and I still don't know what to do with them, so here we are!

Gabriella Newson got pregnant to a dormie named Gavin (it is important to point out right now that this is a different Gavin to her brother...) in college, and they got married after graduation. They now have two sons, George (who has graduated and is living at home again) and Gabe (who's just gone to college). Gabriella, Gavin and George are all Romance sims. Gabriella and Gavin have never had eyes for anyone but each other since they got married (Gabriella had a thing with David Ottomas around graduation, but that's ancient history). George dated Valentina Hart in high school, but she went to college ahead of him and fell in love with a dormie, who she's now married to and expecting her first child with. Since they broke up, George has dated a whole heap of dormies and a couple of playables, but no one he's willing to commit to like I think he might have done had Valentina been availabe.

I'm just finding this household so boring to play. Gabriella and Gavin go to work, come home from work, have multiple woohoo wants without needing to go on a date, woohoo, garden and paint. George does to work, comes home, asks some random dormie on a date... it's all very repetitve. So does anyone have any ideas of how to make them less boring to play?

If they keep rolling the same wants again and again, maybe you could focus on achieving their lifetime wants and see if doing some different activities gets them out of their rut. Maybe make up a story about why they want the particular lifetime wants they do. Gavin could have a midlife crisis and realize he never sowed all his wild oats, for instance.

If they are low on money, maybe they could take in a boarder in the empty room, and that might cause some conflict. At least it would give you someone different to play in the household.

Sometimes if I don't know what to do with a Sim, I simply send them to a community lot, which can trigger new wants.

In my game members of families like this, which might become boring, tend to have friends and interests outside the family. They will invite these friends round, or maybe go on outings with them. I find that Romance Sims tend to get a lot of wants for friendship with other Sims, often with Sims with whom a romantic relationship would be highly unlikely. If you look at what their friends are doing, your Sims might be able to help them. For instance they might help a friend in the Politics career to campaign and get elected.

Personally I like community lot visits, and I don't use Community Lot Time, because that would make them have to hurry back home far too soon. My Sims don't usually order groceries on the 'phone -- they go out to the shops to buy it. They can also go out shopping for clothes, furniture and other things. Or go to a hairdresser for a haircut. Once they're out there's always a good chance they'll run into old friends, or make new ones. Most of my outings use casual groups on unscored outings. Often other Sims they meet outside are asked to join the group, and thus come home with my Sims. Then you can entertain them and give them a meal. May I suggest Peterskywalker's Children and teen townies always visit community lot, so you can meet children and teens when you're out. (By the way you don't need Apartment Life to use this mod. My highest EP is OFB, and I've been using it for several years now.)

The Sims is life simulation and life should never be boring. If it is boring, whether in The Sims or in Real Life, then it's time to spice things up a bit. With a bit of imagination, your Sims can do just about anything that's possible in Real Life. (They can also of course do some things that you could never do in Real Life! )

Sims possibly marrying a distant relative often happened in the 18th century as Americans began moving out west where populations were very small and spread out with few other choices for a marriage.It opten happened even in Europe thoughout history even by accident with poor unkowingly marrying a distant cousin as they often couldn't read and might not know they were related.

Marrying relatives in Europe was not due to illiteracy. People knew their relatives and in addition to that, priests recorded all births, marriages and deaths in books and kept track of the degree of relation that way.
Marriages between relatives were much more common amongst nobility and haute bourgeoisie, not the poor people. These people knew that they were related and they intermarried with the purpose of keeping power and wealth within the family.
I have the impression that Americans use the term "incest" more widely than Europeans. A cousin's cousin is not blood-related at all. Such a relationship might not be usual, but I definitely would not consider it incest.

In olden times marrying your cousin meant that wealth and land of both parties would be kept within the family/dynasty/clan rather than being distributed to other, potential rival families/dynasties/clans.

However that idea came with its own problems, just ask the inbred Habsburgs.

The biological problems related to marrying even a first cousin only become problematic when this practice is repeated multiple times (in the sense of increasing probability of birth defects, etc).
In the Sims, biological issues cannot happen at all.

You can marry your first cousin in Canada if you want. Our destination marriage market for that existed before it did for "gay" marriage. And continues now that LGBTQ* marriages are recognized in more places.

You can marry my first cousin if you like. He's single and I am not going to marry him (even if it's legal), but maybe you can?

Poor might not always know about all relativves if they'd moved around a lot or relocated which did sometimes happen and mistakes were made in records on occasions though most of the time they did try to avoid marrying relatives that were closely related and the marriages between relatives were mostly ditant relatives which might happen because they didn't know about it and there weren't many other options in the colonies where populations were small and scattered around.

Denise Jacquet wants woohoo in bed. I didn't know that Fortune Sims could have wants like that. Especially seeing she's not in a relationship. Maybe I should just let it pass as a silly temptation. But I must say, I think I'll lock it and see what we can do with it. She has a good friendship with Milburn Pennybags, the billionaire financier behind Monopolis. But it is just a platonic friendship and I don't think Milburn would be interested in a romantic relationship; he's in the middle of a passionate affair with Freya Hentze, a very sexy looking young Romance Sim. Denise's only other friendship is with Tess Joyner, one of Gilbert's girlfriends. Now, Bluewater is a suburb of Veronaville, so a relationship with another woman cannot be ruled out. But I can't see Denise being happy to share a girlfriend with her son. However if Tess, when she finds out about Gilbert's other girlfriend (who is confusingly also called Denise!), were to dump him and take up with his mother instead, that could put a different complexion on things.

Denise's want is just for woohoo. There's no mention of love or friendship. Does she just want a one night stand. Maybe she's jealous of Gilbert getting regular woohoo. If it's just woohoo without commitment she wants, there are plenty of promiscuous Romance Sims of both sexes around the neighbourhoods, who will be willing and able to meet her needs. Near neighbours Miriam Hunter and her lodger Nicholas Watson in Toboggan Way would be more than happy for her to have woohoo with both of them!

Any thoughts on what we might do. Has Denise Jacquet behaved like this in your game?

This would be just a wish to recapture youth for an elder as they would most likely not be really wanting to do that though they might wish to be young againso it's more likely to be a wish to be young again and to be married.Mine are unlikley to woohoo without being married first and usually only do it with a spouce.

Please don't anyone take this as a slight, but I used to find elders boring to play. My new rule, though, is whatever elders want, they get! And honestly, it makes them more fun because they don't have so many of the responsibilities of the younger generation, but they usually have the time and means to make their wants come true, and there's no telling where they might lead. So let's get Denise some woohoo! Perhaps to start, a younger man or woman not looking for any serious ties may be just the ticket. Maybe Denise just wants to scratch an itch and then she'll be on to other pastimes. But honestly, there's no telling until you fulfill it. Even if she does want more of a relationship with that particular Sim but that want is one-sided, that may be a signal that she's ready to enter the dating pool and you can look around for a more suitable long-term match.

I think Denise is going to go with sturlington's suggestion and go all-out for woohoo. And I think this fine gentleman may be just the one to satisfy her need:

Wow Denise, he's a catch! A male model! Go for it girl!

If a Child/Teen Sim has a low Interest in Entertainment, yet not high in Culture, how would you describe their media consumption behavior? (games, movies, music, books)

Legacy Heir Merlin has three ladies he's in love with. Christy, Family Sim, works at the pool Merlin's mom owns, friends since he was a child, I always expected him to marry her because both family sims, two bolts. Jaiden, college student, family sim, three bolts. Beth, the Diva, fortune sim, two bolts. Beth is probably out of the running: she didn't show up to his graduation party and, well, the founding generation were both fortune sims and neither one liked being self-employed. Both are elders and both are still whining that they didn't get a job. (Y'all got $600,000+ in the bank from your businesses, what for do you want jobs?!)

Problem is, Merlin isn't rolling a want to marry any of the ladies. And his LTW is a Golden Anniversary. So . . . he has to get married, he's the heir, who should he marry? (Merlin's little brother Galahad is deeply pleased that he, pleasure sim, is not faced with this problem.)

Get them all on the same lot. Have him scope the room. See who he rolls wants to date. High probability of rolling an engagement want on a date.

None of them. Because why would he roll a want to date when he could roll wants to talk to his parents and talk about hobbies and dance and garden and hike?

I tried all the easy stuff. Jaiden lights up most, of course, having one more bolt than the other. Right now, having just moved home after graduation, he wants to talk to all three ladies and has three generic hobby wants.

I think I'd go for Christy. I just find it so romantic when childhood friends marry and stay together for life.