As I have been invited into this group I figured I may as well do something here... Granted, right now I've just finished classes and am into exam season. I really should be studying, but you see, I'm not exactly the most focused of students...

Anyways, I've been hiding this neighbourhood from the public (mostly), save for a few pictures here and there in the TS2 Pictures forum and some name-dropping. I guess it's time to be a little more open (although not obsessed) about it.

A good while ago (must've been at least two years if memory serves) I downloaded SimVille, an Italian project made by lagianfra, MaryLou, Max3D, Numenor, and Simmer. I removed or greatly modified all of the residential lots, though I didn't really touch the community lots all that much. I added in several apartments and decorations to make it seem a bit more "city-like" and plopped down a ton of lots on an unused, empty section of road. I tried to preserve the neighbourhood's original integrity as much as possible, and while it definitely won't win any contests here on MTS, I like how it turned out.

So, here's what the hood looks like now!







The roads in this hood twist and turn and leave very little space for building lots. It's a bit frustrating, but it presented an interesting challenge for me in that it forced me to build up, and I favoured apartments over single houses (Sure does fuel the anti-suburbia part of me!). It's not exactly Hong Kong, but even though TS2 still seems to be a mostly "suburban" kind of game that excludes true city living (or other cultures and countries, for that matter) I think I worked around the restrictions quite nicely.





I also have a mixed of unowned and owned community lots. All of the default community lots that shipped with this hood are unowned and mostly left untouched. Most of the owned community lots were built by me. I'm not exactly the best builder of lots but I think I design my buildings better than some of the buildings in my university campus (Which I think would fail fire safety regulations any day now). The picture above shows a brief glimpse of the area that was once empty road; the only lot there was a cemetery! I left the cemetery alone and used it to bury my own dead Sims along with the few gravestones already there (IIRC cemeteries in Canada are "unmovable", so no development can happen on, above, or under them, and they cannot be moved. I stayed true to this statement; even I would like my dead Sims to rest in peace), and I built a mix of apartments, owned community lots, unowned community lots, and single homes. I still have some space left over which I occupied with building decorations. If I need to build more lots, I'll use that space (But I don't have much left, so subhoods will become prime real estate places soon!). I admittedly got lazy in the new area and just plopped some default Downtown community lots into there. One of them is an owned community lot that I heavily modified, and I quite like it.

And, well, I think I'll give this underappreciated lighthouse some attention. Hi lighthouse!!



I'll post more about this hood soon! The Sims themselves are, at least to me, the real flavour of the soda!

EDIT 22/05/2017: I've also been writing about this hood in The Sims Wiki's fanon namespace. You can take a look at what I have so far here.

Beautiful, scenic hood! I'd love to see the sims you create . Very good job on the overall town, I love the laid-back feel it has to it, and he buildings were very tastefully used. You did WONDERS with Simville. Bravo. Good job on your exams! I have one coming up too. Thanks for distracting me with your cool neighborhood k6ka I wish you luck !

Before I begin, I'd like to make a note about my play style in this hood.

I'm a huge cheater, so I abuse cheats (sometimes to the point of causing problems, although I'm very careful not to do any VBTs!). I play with aging off because that's how I enjoyed The Sims 1 (I let babies and toddlers age up, because eventually I'll tire of the diaper fillers, but once they're independent I'll only let them age up when I want them to). I play with testingcheatsenabled and the Allmenus cheat, and I enable the former before loading any lots, so I can simply drag a Sim's motives, skills, personality points, etc. up or down. Very cheaty, I know, but I feel quite powerful!

Anyways, with that little blurb out of the way, here comes...

The Day Family

(I am not going in any particular order with the families in this neighborhood; I'll just do whatever whenever I feel like it)

The Days are, from the outside, a seemingly "innocent" family consisting of a single father caring for his five boys.

Except, it isn't.



You will have gotten the "single father" and the "five boys" parts correct, but he's not caring for the boys. The boys are all his, but they're all someone else's at the same time.

Cody Day

This is Cody.





Cody's a Pleasure Sim, with Romance as his secondary aspiration. Back when he was younger, he was the Don Lothario of his day, juggling tons and tons of relationships and enjoying steamy nights under the covers. Except until one morning, when an electrocution from a failed attempt at repairing his computer zapped his memory. Then five women that he used to have a relationship with (which the electrocution handily zapped his memory of) showed up to deliver the illegitimate sons they had with him. Cody denies that he was the father, but hrm, all the paperwork's been signed, and the women clearly are furious with him... so he took them in. But the opposite of love is not hate; it's indifference.[1]

Now, even though SimNation Police seem incapable of catching anybody other than truants violating curfew, they do raise an eyebrow at domestic abuse and act accordingly when they receive such reports. But abuse through indifference is a different story. Few people can see such signs. Cody isn't necessarily attacking his boys, but at the same time he doesn't seem to care if they're hungry. He's much too busy settling back into his womanizing ways, chatting on the phone with the girl he met at the bar last week. He also enjoys the company of his male friends too, even if they steal his dates sometimes.



Recently, Cody has scored some points with his landlady, and the two even made out in the privacy of his bedroom. Plus, the townie he chatted with just a few hours ago had connections with the landlady, and she's agreed to convince her to lower the rent! Cody's obviously happy with that. Low rent, comfortable apartment, and a new woman to spend his nights with!



But enough about Cody and his silly life. While the people he dates all know him, they do not see his five boys. Cody makes sure they're out of sight and out of mind when he has other people over. But when Cody's at his graveyard shift gas station attendant job, the boys get the apartment to themselves.

The Day brothers

Er, half brothers, I should say. They all have Cody as their father, but their mothers do not want them any longer. It's just their father, their apartment, and... each other.


(From left to right: Ethan, Christian, Jaden, Bradley, and Taylor)

Despite what it seems, it's not all bad, at least. Their apartment is at least better than living on the streets, and their "father" makes enough money for them to be able to afford food (although it's an awful lot of pizza and Chinese food; Cody doesn't cook, and prefers eating out over eating in). And, if you haven't guessed by now, their bonds with each other, while shaky at first, are starting to improve and strengthen as their situation brings them closer to each other. They may all be illegitimate, but that doesn't make them any less of a child.

Jaden Day

Meet Jaden.





Jaden's the oldest out of his half brothers, and he's always longed for a good fatherly figure to turn to. But even though Cody wouldn't raise an eyebrow if he caught on fire and burned to ashes, Jaden takes on the responsibility of being an older sibling very seriously, and he does his best to keep his half brothers together and united. Jaden is especially close to Taylor, whom I'll talk about in a bit.



Jaden works hard to keep the apartment in as good of a condition as he can manage. While Cody cleans up – sometimes – it's usually not enough to keep the roaches at bay. Jaden wants his brothers to learn good habits from him, so every day after school he cleans up the apartment. The bathroom is usually the worst, and while he's able to rally his brothers to clean the rest of the apartment up, Jaden seems to be the only one willing to roll up their sleeves to clean the bathroom. He scrubs the sink, the shower-tub, and even the toilet. Like I said, Jaden takes his role of being a good role model for his younger siblings very seriously.



Christian Day





Christian is the second oldest of his half brothers. He may not be nearly as into caregiving as Jaden is, but he does clean up after himself and doesn't complain about it. When Christian learned about his past, he wanted to find his real mother; he doesn't have any grudges against her, and hopes that she'll take him in again. A child's heart is pure, or so I've heard. Will that change when Christian grows up? Will he start to hate his mother? Will he become bitter and resentful?

On the plus side, Christian's not afraid of adventure, and he wants to explore the belly of the earth when he grows up. While most people will squirm uneasily at the thought of seeing bats, Christian doesn't mind. He likes the thrill of going into the unknown. In the meantime, though, he's stuck catching bugs, which he says isn't that bad. He doesn't have a problem with small, creepy things.



Ethan Day

Ethan is the more serious kid.





While Christian can only dream about what his mother looked like, Ethan has physical evidence of her existence around his neck. He's been wearing that necklace for as long as he can remember, and he's never taken it off. Ever.

Ethan gets along with his half brothers fine, but he spends a lot of time on his own. He often looks out the window and ponders about whatever comes to his mind quietly. I don't know what he thinks about either, but I'm sure he thinks about his mother a lot. Poor soul. Is there anyone, aside from his half brothers, that's willing to take him in?

Ethan gets along well with Christian, though, and it's one of the rare times you see Ethan actually playing like a kid. He's opening up to his other siblings as well, which is good.



Bradley Day





Bradley's notorious amongst his teachers for being the class clown. He's also notorious for getting in trouble for his "antics". Or so they think. If you got to really know Bradley, you would learn that his behaviour at school is not caused by him being a bad person. Perhaps the fact that both of his parents abandoned him leads him to use his current tactics as a relief from the horrible reality he has to live with now. Have you asked these questions? Or are you the "shoot first, ask later" kind of person that so many educators these days seem to be?

While Bradley's not the student that brings teachers joy, he's very passionate about sports. He wants to be a soccer player one day (or football player, depending on where you're from), and he has his heart set on that. I support him. Would you seriously ban him from playing soccer until his grades improved? If you do, you're just sowing the seeds for him to be a gangster. Let him play the sport he wants to play, and you'll help keep another kid away from a life of crime. See, this is how you reduce crime. Not through overly strict policies but by opening doors instead of closing them. Okay, //rant over.



And when I say that Bradley's not a bad kid, I really do mean it. He really isn't a bad kid. He gets along really well with all of his siblings, especially Taylor.



Taylor Day

And last, but not least, young Taylor.



Taylor's the youngest of the five, but it's clear that he's also the most loved. Taylor's also the shiest of his siblings, and he's okay with being alone. He enjoys the company of his half brothers, however, and he's quickly learning to be comfortable around them. He still hangs back when friends from school come over for a visit, though.

Taylor wants to be a teacher when he grows up, and his fondness for books and movies gets him on the right track for that. But being a good student doesn't make you a good teacher, and in order for Taylor to stand up at the front of the classroom, he needs to learn how to break out of his comfortable little bubble. I'm confident that Taylor will do well. But he needs the opportunity to germinate first, and his crappy father isn't helping in that regard. The plus side? His four half brothers are with him, so at the very least he's not alone in his struggle.



A brief glimpse at life inside the Day family

Even though Cody dislikes even the idea of working, his growling stomach still gets him out of bed in the morning to fix himself some cereal for breakfast. And while he's at it, he may as well keep social services at bay by making a bowl for the kids too.

Usually though, he just orders a pizza and lets the pizza place do the talking. Er, baking. Cody never eats with the boys... which suits the five just fine.



Nights are where things get interesting. There's a twin bed, but only Cody allows himself to use it, and the other spot is reserved for the WooHoo partner – when he finds one. The other bedroom is far too small for all five boys to sleep in, even with couches and recliners, so the boys wind up taking turns sleeping. Three of them can sleep at a time, so the two either clean up or hang out with each other. Halfway through the night, two boys switch and the other two get some shut-eye. One boy a night gets a full night of uninterrupted sleep, although couches and recliners don't offer much comfort or energy. The boys rotate, although it's not a particularly even system; Jaden voluntarily stays up almost every night. Nevertheless, though, all five of them are tired throughout the day. Their school grades reflect that.



Tonight it was Jaden and Ethan's turn to stay up for the first half of the night. Jaden uses it as an opportunity to talk to his younger half brother about the importance of schooling and to stay positive. The two know it's easier said than done, but having the right mental attitude is half the battle.



Conclusion

Hopefully this was a pleasure to read. I enjoy writing, and I found writing about my Sims to be an incredible joy. I really do like creating characters and writing about them, answering to no rules and no limits, aside from my imagination. Hopefully you also enjoyed the story behind these Sims as well. I like characters with a rich backstory, and while such a thing takes time (and would take a novel to cover), it's always a joy to see my characters come to life between the lines.

By the way, I'm shamelessly advertising here, but if you'd like to see some more of my writing, feel free to check out my Wattpad. I don't have a lot up right now, but if you like what you read, I encourage you to check it out. If you prefer to read my Sims-related work, I have some fanon up on The Sims Wiki.

Anyways, this took a while to complete! I'm going to bed now. Stay tuned for more!

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Day family
• Cody Day
• Jaden Day
• Christian Day
• Ethan Day
• Bradley Day
• Taylor Day
• Brooklyn Apartments

Notes
1. Quote by Elie Wiesel

What an absolutely beautiful neighbourhood! :lovestruc Great pictures.

I love the idea of Cody and his family- poor bloke doesn't really have a clue, does he? I feel sorry for those boys, but they seem to be looking out for each other as best they possibly can. I'm looking forward to hearing more about them, and about the rest of the neighbourhood!

Nice posts, @k6ka !

It's a very interesting and detailed premise for a non nuclear family! I am interested to see what if anything changes when they are teens. Do you. Have a planned narrative or does Sim play generate your narrative?

I love this family, and I love all of the kids too! I like how you developed all of them individually! I don't necessarily have a favorite as I like them all equally Continue to post updates please!

I enjoyed reading about your version of SimVille, good pictures and a good story. BTW typing while a different one of my 3 cats is on my lap. Makes me want to try post some kind of story, but I never do because I am too busy playing to catch the moments most of the time.

Thanks for all the comments, guys! For a long time I had considered publicly posting information about this hood, but I could never find the time nor the motivation. This thread isn't exactly what I wanted to do many years ago, but hey, at least I'm enjoying it so far! Currently working on my second post; no ETA on when it'll be complete, as I dislike deadlines, but hopefully I won't procrastinate so badly on this one!

In the meantime, I found this picture sitting quietly in the depths of my Google Photos folder. I took it back in January and apparently forgot about it.



Oh Cody, he never learns.

The Newbie Family

Yeah, and I'll admit that the name is pretty pathetic (and unoriginal). I named this family the "Newbie" family because it was the second family I created in The Sims 2 (The first being one I deleted in the family bin... which is a VBT), and the first I intended to play seriously. When I abandoned my first neighbourhood due to corruption, I extracted the appearances of the Sims in this family and imported them into the hoods I wanted to play them in. This, if memory serves correctly, is the fourth hood I've moved them into, and so far they've settled in here for the longest. And given the progress I've made with them now, it's hard to move them again.

I installed Cyjon's Bigger Families mod and cranked things up a notch, because more is always better. It does have the unusual (and interesting) side effect of screwing up the family photo:



There's supposed to be six Servos and two children in this photo, but only five and one appeared. Huh.

The Newbies are the wealthiest family in the hood, and only partly through their effort. Most of their money came from the use of cheats, and with so much wealth at their disposal, it wasn't hard for them to advance rapidly up the career ranks. The Newbies also have the most friends, and it's in their blood to befriend everyone in the neighbourhood. Whenever someone new moves into the hood, they're always the first ones at their doorstep to welcome them. The Newbies are also very into music and dance, and they don't shy away from the opportunity to show off their talents to the neighbours.



There are a ton of images in this post, so as a courtesy to readers I've collapsed everything. Click on the buttons below to continue perusing.









Conclusion

This took quite a while to make! Hopefully you enjoyed the pictures I took. There's a lot more about this family that I haven't yet covered. You probably want to see Amar's businesses, but that's going to be a post for another time. The Newbies may seem successful, but in my mind their materialism is what ultimately destroys them in the end. That, and maintaining friendships is more of a chore for these Sims than it is about actually liking and loving people. Every Saturday, the Newbies hold a party at their house and invite random neighbours to mix and mingle with each other. It's a good way to get Sims to know other Sims, I guess. But I figure Evan's going to realize, when he grows up, that a party might just be a distraction, a way of fooling oneself into believing that they're doing good. Every guest in the party has a secret to hide, and they're probably not going to reveal it at a party. But will Evan really want to leave his comfy home to visit someone's slum-like apartment to talk to them in person?

Kudos to the Freezer Clock and the Hula Dance and more mods for helping with the picture-taking.

By the way, I accidentally hit the 45 degree view button when taking one of the pictures, and I liked what I saw so much, I had to take a screenshot. Looks like my Sims make good models.



The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Newbie family
• Dan Newbie
• Betty Newbie
• Justin Newbie
• Evan Newbie
• Oreo Newbie
• Amar Newbie
• Andrew Newbie
• Chase Newbie
• Julius Newbie
• Oscar Newbie
• Roland Newbie
• Alec Bigfoot
• 1 Newbie Court
• Amar's Appliances
• Amar's Clothing & Instruments
• Amar's Flowers & Craftables
• Amar's Hangout
• Amar's Restaurant
• Fresh Rush Grocery
• The Servo Band

Notes
1. SimVille has all four seasons set for summer, since I wanted to have a more "tropical" climate for the region. Hence, that swimming pool sees quite a bit of use.
2. It's hard to actually scientifically verify claims or theories of birth order, since there are so many different factors that can and do come into play when determining a child's personality. I completely understand if you don't subscribe to the idea, and I admit that I might be suffering from confirmation bias.
3. As of April 17, 2017, the "Bigfoot hugging child" and the "Bigfoot work outfit" images are of Alec.

The Barb Family
The Barb family consists of only one Sim – Serge Barb. If you frequent the Bloopers and Funny Sim Pics or the Random Picture Thread, you've probably seen Serge before.

Serge existed as a mean military man in my very first neighbourhood (the one I lost to corruption), along with his wife Gloria (who fell in love with a Servo and divorced him), his teenaged daughter Tina (who hates him), and his youngest son Kyle (who still kinda likes him). While the rest of the family faded into the background, Serge was the most fun to play with, and I kept him in every hood I made thereafter as the "town troublemaker". Even though I have never played Strangetown before, I admit that I got the idea for him from General Buzz Grunt.









Conclusion

Serge may be fun and funny to play with, but he should also be a reminder that behind every mean person, there is a soft side to them. For Serge, that's his workouts and his gardening. I should also think of some nice backstory for him to explain his behaviour. While Serge may not be well liked around town, he's not a wholly bad person. For one, I remember seeing him console his son back in my corrupted first neighbourhood when he was crying. Kyle's not around anymore, but maybe Evan Newbie will be able to find more answers once he gets a little older.

Hoped you enjoyed this post! This was a lot easier to make than the last one, and a lot more fun, to be honest! Using the slowMotion cheat is really cool!

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Barb family
• Serge Barb
• 13 Marc Crescent

Sorry for the lack of updates recently; I've been working on the next family but that's gonna take a little bit longer. In the meantime I've started working on Fanon:SimVille, which is actually what I wanted to do with this neighbourhood (Create a fanon page for it on The Sims Wiki). I'll still update this thread, so don't worry!

Here's a road map of SimVille. Incredibly small and simple hood with very few roads; it's a wonder I was able to fit this many Sims and buildings into this hood!

Cool, and thanks for the update k6ka! I think it's cool that you made a fanon page. Your families look awesome, and again-your setup is masterful . I can't wait to hear more updates about your hood. I'll definitely be reading the fanon page

I enjoyed reading the updates, good pictures too. I especially liked the Serge Barb part.

One day during my Christmas break in December 2016, I was looking at my then-incomplete novel For my little brother. I really liked the characters in the novel, more than the story itself, perhaps, and because I was bored on my hands, I decided to recreate those characters in The Sims 2.

Or at least tried to! I'm not one to replicate appearances in The Sims, nor did I offer any descriptions of the main character or his family in the novel. But appearances weren't really on my mind, and I frequently recycled old Sim appearances anyways. What really mattered, at least to me, were the characters and their personalities.

So I created the Cuevas. The name was generated from a random name generator. It's not the last name of the main character in my novel, since I both wanted to 1) Recreate the same Sims in-game, and 2) Wanted to make them technically different Sims at the same time. Ugh. Perhaps I regret my decision. But the Sims have settled into SimVille quite nicely... kinda.



The Cuevas are recent immigrants to SimNation, having come from a large, crime-ridden city in an impoverished, developing country. The parents and their four children have all grown up in the slums, and the parents have always wanted to bring them a better future. The father worked hard, and eventually "hit big" (through intentionally unspecified means), making enough to move his family to SimVille (and why not buy a nice house to boot?). But the eldest son disapproves of the move, and the problems of a developed country like SimNation begin to dawn on them as they realize that the grass wasn't as green as they thought it was. Can the family stay together?

By the way, if you haven't read the novel yet, go ahead and check it out. It's free for everyone to view (and if Wattpad's not your thing, I also have a Google Docs version of the story here).







Conclusion

Hope you enjoyed this! Sorry it took a bit longer than usual to get this out. Again, the story the characters are (mostly) based off of is called "For my little brother". You can read it on Wattpad or Google Docs.

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Cuevas family
• Thomas Cuevas
• Isabelle Cuevas
• Julio Cuevas
• Garrett Cuevas
• Cheryl Cuevas
• Evan Cuevas
• 55 SimVille Street

If you remember the post about the Days, you will recall that Cody Day is a father, but at the same time he's too busy wrapped up in his own pursuit for pleasure to actually be one.

For the Firebaums, the situation is similar... but a lot less extreme.









Conclusion

The Firebaums are one of my oldest families, although I haven't actually played them that much in SimVille. Cory's definitely better than Cody, and his kids aren't doing too bad. But every parent is a role model, whether or not they like it, and Cory and Cody aren't playing that role very well. Will Cory ever realize just how unexciting his hedonistic lifestyle is compared to what's out there? I mean, eventually you have to get bored of munching on chips in front of the TV.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more!

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Firebaum family
• Cory Firebaum
• Carly Firebaum
• Darren Firebaum
• Palmetto Condos

I enjoyed the Cuevas, nice descriptive picures and good story line. I also liked the Firebaum Family, again good pictures and nice description of what was going on.

I am looking forward to more on your familes, I really liked them.

@lordtyger9 Glad to see that you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed making them!

I thought I'd take a little break from playing the Sims themselves and focus on the lots a little bit. First up: Amar's Hangout.





Amar's Hangout is the largest and oldest of Amar Newbie's businesses, and judging by the amount of time he spends there, it's also his favourite lot out of them all. Amar's Hangout is currently a venue, although it had masqueraded as a shop selling craftable items at one point in time. When Amar opened more businesses and moved the business of selling items to another lot, he decided to turn Amar's Hangout into a fully-fledged venue, selling the opportunity to have fun rather than a toy car. Amar's Hangout is open 7 days a week from 9AM to 12AM, and all are welcome to enter! ...well, except Serge Barb, but if your name isn't Serge Barb, Amar's Hangout welcomes you!

Now that you're here, let's go on a brief tour of the place, shall we?







Conclusion

Phew! Taking pictures was a lot of work! Anyways, there are more images of this lot up on The Sims Wiki, so if you're interested, have a look. Hopefully I'll be able to get another family done soon!

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Amar's Hangout

Amar's hangout sounds like a rather interesting place to well...hang-out! It's rather well built, and boasts a logical lay-out, and seems like it would occupy sims' (fly) attention span for hours. I love how to caters to a vast array of interests, without seeming too convoluted or illogical. Thanks for posting k6ka, I really do enjoy reading about your hood- It's so beautiful :lovestruc!

Really? I thought the design was mediocre! Hmm, guess I've been proven wrong again... in a good way!

Well...I *personally* like it. And I have high standards regarding layout too! I abhor overly-crowded or gaudy furnishings, and in my opinion, the lot achieves it's purpose effectively .

Amar's Hangout is huge compared to all of my businesses, but it looks fine to me. I don't win any awards for building though. What counts is if you like it, if not then do some more remodeling, that is what I do to what I build, if I find myself dissatisfied I remodel and usually I add on to it. I enjoyed looking at Amar's Hangout, to me it is just fine.

If you've been following the Amar Newbie page on The Sims Wiki for a while now, you've probably noticed a section titled "Paintings" there. To quote:



Amar's done a number of these paintings indeed, and all of them can be found on the linked page. Painting these images is a lot trickier than simply taking a screenshot, slipping the image into the Storytelling folder, and then having them order a photo on the computer, but when I pull it off, they look really nice on the wall indeed.


"Affectionate Kiss" – featuring Dan and Betty Newbie.


"Talking About Bella" – featuring Justin and Evan Newbie.


"Flying Jordan" – featuring Jordan Logan.


"My Brother, Even When We're Poor" – featuring Simon and Lucas Torres.

Today Amar did a "paintograph" for the Haiders, a family that I'll talk about later. To create one of these famous paintings on another lot, I need cheats to make the magic happen. First, I summon Amar using a Teleporter Cat and then make him selectable using testingcheatsenabled. Then I have him pull out an easel from his inventory and get him set up somewhere on the lot. I then choose the "Paint Still Life" option.



I did some preparation beforehand; today I was doing the Haider's three younger kids. This is the hard part, since Sims are quite prone to just dropping this interaction after you choose a subject for no reason at all. Unpausing the game and moving the camera around seems to increase the likelihood of this happening. Treeag's Freezer Clock comes in handy a lot of the time.



...and Amar gets painting! Even though the kids are outside and Amar's inside the Haider's small apartment, he can still get the picture!

On a more realistic note, Amar's a robot, so he can simply take a picture in his mind. Now it's just a matter of repainting it using his paintbrush and palette.



Check in a few hours later. Coming along quite nicely!



It usually takes even a robot like Amar several hours to complete a painting, but being a Servo, Amar has few needs to worry about, so he can just paint on until it's done!



The Haiders hang it up in their small, cramped apartment next to another painting Amar had already done for them. Normally these paintings cost §400 apiece, but the Haiders are poor, and Amar generously lets them have it for only §100. While I'll talk about the Haiders another time, they do place a large emphasis on family, and so these paintings are worth every penny.

My love for city living and disdain for all things suburbia spilled over into The Sims, and in my quest to create neighbourhoods that were more urban-like, I created the Urbans in a downtown subhood of my old, corrupted Pleasantview.



Of course, I wasn't so big on storylines back then, but now after recreating this family in SimVille, I decided to give them some bios to fill in the gaps and to give them a proper personality outside of the game's limitations.



The Urban family consists of Johnny and Suzie Urban, and their identical twin sons Jared and Tommy. The family gets along, but the four seem to form two groups of their own. For one, Johnny and Suzie share the same personality, while Jared and Tommy together share the same personality, different from their parents. The two Urban parents are content with settling down in the city and raising their family, but the Urban twins long for adventure both within and beyond the walls of the city. Spelunking in caves (and subway tunnels), hiking through tropical jungles (and the asphalt ones), and not caring about being covered in mud (and grime from urban pollution) all appeal to the twins, who long for more than the vacations their parents go on.







Conclusion

For many years, I did not actually think of a proper storyline for this family; however, now that I've come up with one, it only makes me feel more and more attached to these Sims. Yeah, I know they're just pixels on a screen, but the characters I create for my own novels and stories are just thoughts – or are they? A fictional character does not mean a "false" character, for even a work of fiction can make a huge difference in the real world. For the Urbans, perhaps it's a reflection of today's youth. Should we encourage them to explore and change the world or should we just shun them and force them through twelve long years of mandatory schooling to "kill" their inner spirit and replace it with boring, apathetic people that only think about their own comfort?

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Urban family
• Johnny Urban
• Suzie Urban
• Jared Urban
• Tommy Urban
• Sentinel Apartments

Notes
1. I do have BO's Kids and Pets Unattended mod, so at least that's a start.
2. Also, is it just me or is anyone else irked by the fact that the vacation destination "secret lots" have ROADS in front of them?! Ugh. I really hoped that you'd have to hike along a dirt trail before accessing these lots, not just take a taxi.