I'm sure this must have been debated before, but I can't find the thread. I'm baffled by Nervous Subject, the son of Olive Specter in Strangetown. When we first see him, he has the personality points of a zombi - 0, 0, 10, 0, 0. The lines underneath these traits indicate that, before the Beakers got their hands on him, his points were 10, 1, 10, 2, 2. Well, I have a downloaded Big Book of Shadows, and he is slowly and painfully regaining the missing personality points. That is not the problem.

He is a family sim with the LTW to Reach Golden Anniversary. I was puzzled by his total failure to register any attraction to the sims he met, so I looked up his file in SimPE. It turns out that he is totally disgusted by both males and females. Oh, come on, Maxis! How is he supposed to cope with that? With whom or what could he possibly reach golden anniversary?

What have other simmers done with this character? Do they push through a romance with Pascal Curious, ignoring the element of disgust? Should I just put things right in SimPE, and make him attracted to one sex or the other? I like to play within the rules if possible, but here it seems just impossible. Any ideas?

I never really play strange town, back when I first got the game when it first came out, I think I made Nervous marry either Chloe or Lola. but when I think about it, I don't really like that idea because I'd rather put Lola with AJ and Chloe is just a romance sim with lots of lovers. But I've never played my game out this way. In my current game I've somewhat made him flirt with Pascal but haven't really played it out yet.

I personally give him his genetic personality back with SimPE and use SimPE to set attraction.

The point of his being a Family sim with no gender attraction is that he's been seriously messed up - playing him has to be hard! He's one of the few sims you could actually play as an asexual, but if you want him to gain that LTW that won't do.

So - pick the gender you want him to be attracted to and have him check out that gender repeatedly. Eventually - and it really doesn't take that long if you work it; plus, if you have somebody in mind for him, you can work it from both ends (if you're careful) - he'll get a positive reaction to that gender. I've hardly played Strangetown at all, but I've already got him together with the waiter who spawned for the Garden of Eatin'. Once he gets a little bit of attraction, you can easily build more by encouraging romantic interactions - each one will build his preference a little bit more.

I haven't done anything to his personality points. As I'm playing him, he's got PTSD and can see things other sims can't due to his family background, and thus has been misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. I wouldn't feel that I was playing Nervous if he had his genetic personality. He moved back in with Olive (rather reluctantly) and she died shortly thereafter, so he's been living in the Specter house. After Olive died, I moved in a townie who had befriended him autonomously (which is amazing and says "Keeper" to me!) as his caretaker, and gave him a Knowledge secondary, so the ghosts haven't been a big problem for him. Once he invited Toby the waiter to move in, his caretaker married Pascal, and now he and Toby can adopt as many kittens and kids as their little Family hearts desire. Plus, they have a telescope. So I'm thinking he's over the hump.

But he'll always be slightly squirrelly, and that's as it should be.

I haven't played him yet so I don't know what his LTW will be - obviously as he's a pre-Uni sim, it might not be the same. The only real plan I have for him right now is to build up a relationship with his mother so he can move in with her (in my head, he can only be asked to move in by someone else, he can't move out on his own), and I might see if Cyjon's personality-o-nomitron can give him back his personality. I want to keep him asexual, but I do usually try Sims LTWs. I think if he rolls a marriage related one, I'll reroll.

In the org. Strangetown he has a -0.01 for female and 0.0 for male and this is the normal for him, most if not all townies and NPC are 0.0/0.0.
To me the reason why he is -0.01 is his mother gave him up and the SW was a female that came and took him away.
It is very easy to just have him check out any female 2 times and he will start to like the girls or once for the boys.

In my original Strangetown, Nervous made friends with Erin Singles/Beaker who was always coming over to see her brother and nephew. Over time, she formed a crush on Nervous and made a move. They were late parents but eventually got married and had two beautiful daughters.

In my reinstall Strangetown, Nervous is currently in a 'we can be weird together' relationship with Pascal. Nervous was left a house by his estranged mother and didn't like being there alone so he invited his best friend Pascal (along with his alien daughter) to move in with him. After Nervous was abducted by aliens and had twins, space got tight and the BFFs started sharing a room. They're extremely attracted to each other but haven't made the leap into a relationship yet. Pascal (a Family secondary aspiration) has been rolling flirty wants but I haven't decided if Nervous is still too twitchy to accept them or not...

Thanks, everyone. Somehow I'd made the mistake of thinking the disgust showing in SimPE must be permanent. I forgot it can be changed with use. I'll keep sending him to community lots, and hope love will come his way.

I made him friends with Loki & Circe, made him like girls by checking out Circe a lot.
Made friends with the Curious boys, too, cuz he kept popping up over there lol.
His ltw was capn hero, so went to work as that. Good relationship with Olive also.
Moved him out to big house. Got inheritance from Olive(she died right after Ophelia aged up).

Moved Brandi Broke in with him, to see how they got along... I didn't like em together,
so put him in Olive's home with Ophelia, leaving Brandi his huge house.
Then got him alien pregnant, also had twins.
Ophelia helped raised them then moved in with Johnny Smith once the twins were teens.
Named em John & Joe Subject, one knowledge, other family.
Knowledge one married a green eyed dark-skinned dormie,
Family one married one of Beau Broke & Hermia Capp's 4 daughter's.

I put Buzz's grave in Olive's graveyard & he loved scaring Nervous...
Olive scared him few times too... & of course the rest did.
After Knowledge son graduated i moved him in Olive's place with his dormie woman.
& other son lives in beau&hermia's house with his wife.
Then had Nervous die of old age, permaplat from being capn hero.
Eh he got kids he wanted... & died plat so not bad sim life i guess for him I guess.
Anyway that's what i did.

*whispers* Well I made a simself and married him to her because I wanted to rescue him from the Beaker place myself...

And when I got him, he was for some reason alien pregnant. He had a daughter who I named Susan for obvious reasons...

He's still skittish, but I think he'll be okay.

The one and only time I played with Nervous was with just base game a year after the game came out. He befriended the daughter of a CAS family after being a walk by one day. She was still a child at the time, but they continued to be friends all through her teen years and was nearly inseparable by the time the girl (don't remember her name) was ready for her adult birthday. Her parents threw a party for her and of course she invited Nervous. Not even a sim hour after she grew into an adult, she and Nervous shared their first kiss and later that week they were married. Shortly after that, I corrupted my hood and never played Strangetown again.

Well, my sister insisted that I had to rescue him, so I made him and the Beakers into townies. Then I got quite interested in the pre-mades, and moved Bella Goth in with one of my families, then moved her out on her own and built her a Bella-themed house. I felt a bit sorry for Nervous because he kept getting into fights at community lots, even though he started them in the first place. Then I got the idea of setting Bella and Nervous up together, so they are currently going out with each other. My sister then told me that he was gay (the preferences in SimPE thing). But it was kind of too late by then as I'd already got attached to the idea of him with Bella.

I thought he was very sweet with Pacal, who also has kind of a bad situation. I feel that Pascal and Nervous could make a life together.

I play a megahood, so bearing that in mind . . . Kent Capp ships with a male gender preference, and as a knowledge sim, has a hankering for a telescope. One date with aliens later and he's off to Strangetown. The Capps have a whole lot of clout in my megahood, being old money. So it doesn't take very long for Kent to notice a cute but shy guy with a mohawk and befriend him, discover that he's really the missing Muenda heir, and talk Nervous into moving in. Kent's got enough . . . family sway, shall we call it? . . . to not be intimidated by Nervous' also-old-money mother, or by the not-quite-so-old-money Beakers. But Kent has no clue what to do with a baby-he's mostly interacted with his nieces and nephews after they became mobile, and Nervous, after all, has been acting as live-in nanny for Loki and Circe's baby, so Nervous feels like he's helped Kent at least as much as Kent's helped him . . . and Kent's firm belief that Nervous is a social peer probably helps with that some, too.

Pleasantside Behavioral Health Center @ Pleasantview Regional Medical Center. What he's been through obviously has driven him crazy.

I do really love Nervous.
He's so messed up that I can't help being specially fond of him.

I think that the first time I played Strangetown I paired him with Pascal (and later I learnt many others do) but to be honest I did not like how my story developed.
Now that I have restarted this premade neighbourhood, Nervous had a bit of a tale to tell!

He was abused by the Beakers, who forced him to do all the chores of their mansion to the point he would fall on the floor exhausted.
He was having a bad time, but he never thought there could be a better life for him out there.

Then he met Chloe Singles.
Chloe was a Romance sim who was interested in men... and Nervous was first the man she ever met who was not related to her (since my Chloe has family bonds with their half-siblings). And the only one for a while. So she did her best to seduce him, despite Nervous not being her type.
(Afterwards she met other guys, and she did not hesitate to cheat him whene ver she had a chance... but Nervous never knew.)
I would not say that Nervous felt more attracted to women, but he certainly cherished the attention he was receiving from Chloe, and that grew on him as a form of love.

Chloe even made him the greatest favor in his eyes: She introduced him to his actual mother, Mrs. Specter.
Ophelia has left home to go to the university, so she was quite alone in her haunted house and decided it was time to be honest about all her life story (which would surprise anyone but Nervous, who is enough messed up to not think anything weird) and move Nervous in with her. He was her rightful heir after all.

Nervous has happy. Sooo happy. He had a family!
Oh, how he had dreamed about that!
Then he thought "Now I can even create MY own family!" and proposed to Chloe, who could not find any excuse to say no and ended up accepting.

Nervous felt like he was dreaming, like things could not be better ever.
But he should not have ignored those coughs he had been suffering for a while. Making a lot of sport, which he though would keep him healthy, did not really work as he expected.
A last cough on the treadmill and all was over.


I must say it was sad to see him go... but I think he made a hell of a great story for this hood!

I usually pair him up with Pascal Curious. They're already friends, and there's room for something more. One time I had him befriend Olive Specter and move in, just hours before she died. He made the house a little more "family friendly" and moved in a very pregnant Pascal. Then, through a series of tests (or inteen), Nervous became pregnant with Pascal's child (I considered another alien baby, but I wanted to create something between the two of them). They gave birth two days apart, and the children grew up happily...aside from the occasional fright from those pesky ghosts.

I think it would be interesting to pair him with a servo. He could definitely reach a golden anniversary with one.

In most of my neighborhoods I have a designated "testing Sim," whose sole function in life is to make sure my designs and creations work the way they're supposed to... I usualy just go into CAS and make a random Sim to fill that role, but I think if I ever actually played Strangetown enough to need such a position, Nervous Subject would be a perfect fit! Not exactly nice to him, but I can imagine him eventually being "used up" as far as the Beaker family is concerned, so they'd just turn him over to the NightVale- errr...Strangetown city council, and he'd be used as a guinea pig for all sorts of community issues....

I never really know what to do with poor Nervous, but one of the few times I played him, he started as a resigned prisoner who had given up on any hopes of freedom after years of grisly experimentation on him. That is until Circe found herself pregnant and Nervous realised he couldn't watch another person be subjected to what he had in life. Once the baby was born, Nervous escaped, taking the newborn with him and starting a new life once the search efforts had died down. He went on to marry a townie who lovingly tolerates his "eccentricities" and they had a child together. I liked that, despite his shaky start in life, he ended up living the suburban dream... More or less.

Poor Nervous. The way i'm playing him right now is he is very...nervous. He is suspicious of other Sims, always worried, not too mentally stable..messed up from what the Beakers put him through. Or he was anyway I have since gotten him with Pascal Curious as they showed they liked each other so I went with it and Pascal had him move in with him (and at the time Lazlo, Vidcund and his alien twin boys and of course Pascal's alien baby, a girl. Lazlo, Vidcund and Vidcund's boy's have since moved out...Nervous and Vidcund did not get along, at all! Always fighting). He is slowly getting better but I have determined he isn't stable enough to get a job but Pascal makes plenty of money that they are ok. Nervous is content to stay at home and cook and take care of the kids. They adopted a son together and I just got Nervous alien pregnant recently and he had a girl who is an infant at the moment. Pascal's alien baby he had before he got with Nervous just went to Uni and the son they adopted together is a teen. Nervous while he has his issues in my game thanks to Pascal he is getting better and he loves his little family. The Beakers are upset at losing their test subject but fear getting caught so they had to take their loss, but they have kids and it looks like one of them may end up being their new test subject soon...when she reaches teenhood. Oh dear.. >.<

I always liked Nervous, strange as he was. He was friendly to others, always showed up at the Curious house, taking a walk up the tower, then leaving the lot without talking to anyone there. When Circe and Loki got sick and died, he rolled a want to move out. There weren't any available houses at the time so I eventually tore down most of the house and made a one story on the foundation, built a pool and set the tombstones near the back of lot. Nervous studied and got a job. He came home sick the first day, but got better. He kept getting sick and rolling wants to move out. Finally he met a woman with 3 children, a boy and twin girls, they got along great, finally married and had the cutest identical twin boys. They were all getting sick too often so they finally moved into their own home. Circe and Loki were sent downtown to the cemetery.

I think that lot was set up for sickness as he called the bug guy and nothing was ever found. He and his family never got sick after the move out and he finally got his move out want fulfilled.

How did you all manage to get Chloe and Nervous together?? I had them set up for a cheap blind date by the gypsy matchmaker in my old game twice, and both times were a total disaster. The first time Nervous got slapped and then spent the rest of the date crying in the corner while Chloe kept trying to cue insults at him. The second time she just attacked him headfirst and then proceeded to ACR random townies while Nervous once again cried in a corner. Least to say, Pascal's wedding a few days later was a very, very awkward affair.

In my old game, Circe had three bolts with Nervous and tried to ACR him the second Loki was out of the room. As it turned out, Loki got killed by a satellite (okay, I admit it - I hated his guts, so it was all on me), and Circe managed to get Nervous into bed not long after that. She then discovered she was pregnant with Loki's child (not my doing), but was of course too focused on her work to take care of her post-birth. Nervous was her daughter's pseudo-father and her only friend throughout her entire childhood, which was really sweet. Circe also gave birth to twins (Nervous being the father, of course), but neither were in love with each other or seemed interested in pursuing a relationship. (In fact, they never rolled romantic wants for each other, oddly enough.)

Vidcund kept rolling wants to propose to Circe now that Loki was out of the picture, though, and entered the household with his two alien kids (but not before getting Circe pregnant again). It was starting to get crowded and Nervous kept rolling wants for this townie girl he had met, so I moved him into the Specter house instead... he'd occasionally call Circe's daughter once in a while, but he just kept completely fell out with the Beaker/Curious family otherwise (save for Pascal). Even his own kids, whom he never really was affectionate with despite being their main caretaker, for some reason.

Just before my game crashed he'd gotten married with the townie girl, but ACR-made out with Kristen Loner (née Singles/Loste) at her golden anniversary. As for Pascal - I don't know, they always had this weird tension going on in my game. If Pascal hadn't been straight, I'm pretty sure he would have done something about it, but Nervous was bi, very attracted to Pascal and he still never initiated anything. Personally, I always took it as him having unrequited feelings for Pascal and trying to get over it with Circe/Kristen/the townie girl, even though officially, he never had as much as a crush on him.

If you have Seasons, turn him into a plantsim and have him spawn a buncha plant-brats. Imagine a town full of active, grouchy, pain-in-the-butt plantsims - all (or at least most) who have Nervous' lovely features.

Yea, Pascal. In more than one game they easily fell for each other; surprised me that Nervous did, but Pascal always seemed...well, not manly. I've often seen Nervous autonomously play with other people's toddlers and kids, so I think he really has a soft heart. I enjoy playing him.