Going For Broke - Chapter 1: Betty
THIS IS NOT A STORY!!!!
I can't write a story if you paid me. Well, if you paid me then maybe I would make the effort. But since I'm doing this for free, it is going to be commentary or nothing.
The premise
This is basically an idea that I came up with about the same time as simgaroop but she beat me to the punch with her Making of Cassandra Goth series. If you haven't read go, go read it RIGHT NOW!!! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
The basic idea is to get the storylines of "ancestors" living in TS3 to the points at which we find them in TS2. simgaroop did the Goths. I'm starting with Betty Simovitch and Bob Newbie, getting them together, having them burp out Brandi, then getting her together with Skip Broke, thus bringing about the birth of Dustin, Beau and Mystery Bay #3. And perhaps bringing about Skip's death. Who knows? I haven't thought about what I'm going to do with Skip once Brandi's pregnancy #3 is under way.
The method
Why yes, there is some sort of method to my madness!
I have installed Awesomemod and set it to mimic TS2 aging. It appears to be working. Both Betty and Bob have 13 days to go until their birthday and aging to YA. What I will do is play Betty for 1 week, then Bob for 1 week, then Betty until the night of her birthday, switch back to Bob, have him age to YA, promptly go back to Betty and age her up, too. I will then embark on the quest to get them married and have Betty give birth to Brandi thanks to a diet rich in watermelon. When Brandi has 4 days to go in the child stage, I will switch aging back to TS3 normal so that Skip can come out of his ageless limbo. I will then cunningly make them into friends, etc etc, until Dustin and Beau are born.
I know that I can probably do this differently or that I could switch aging back to normal earlier. But I didn't want to take the chance that Skip, being older, would get married to someone else or have the game accidentally-on-purpose electrocute him and take him out of the running for Brandi's One And Only. So I'm going to force synchronisation of his and Brandi's ages via Awesomemod's TS2 style aging feature.
Onward!
As already mentioned, I'm starting in the Simovitch household. Let's meet the players.
This is Betty. A pretty young thing.
Her father, Vadim. Who apparently immigrated from East Simlandia or some other sim equivalent of Eastern Europe.
And her mother, Fatima. Betty looks a lot like her. And it's not just the hairstyle.
Betty promptly rolled the Lifetime Wish of Golden Fingers Golden something else (max guitar and charisma skills) plus a bunch of wants to do with playing her guitar. So I sent her down to the bookshop to buy some sheet music to learn the new songs that she desired to learn.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Fatima produces this masterpiece. And immediately sells it for 3 bucks.
Betty is drawing quite a crowd of sims bopping their heads in time with the music. We seem to be missing a protest, though. Let's take a look.
Apparently they're protesting against the moon landing. Bunch of conspiracy theorists.
The dude in the brown shirt, next to the woman in green, is Don Lothario. The one in the bottom right corner is Betty's future father-in-law, Robert Newbie.
No idea who the others are because I'm not all that familiar with all the residents of Riverview.
Vadim wanted to go fishing. It's hard to see because I didn't get a closeup of his face but he looks absolutely thrilled. In the wrist slashing sort of thrilled way. I put him out of his misery and cancelled the action because he looked like he was about to cry.
Betty wanted to play her guitar at the park. So I went into town view, found then nearest park and sent her there.
This consisted of her putting away her guitar and walking over about 3 steps. Hey presto! We're at the park. I didn't realise the strip of grass next to Betty was a park...
So she decided to do some busking, since we were there anyway and she wanted to earn money from playing guitar.
Fatima does this ALL THE TIME!!! She keeps finding the nearest mirror to check herself out. It is driving me insane. Just as well I'm only playing this family one week at a time?
Is there a "Vain" trait? I didn't notice Fatima having such a trait. She is a Snob, though. Maybe it comes from that?
One of Betty's traits is "Good". Here she is, just after donating to the Potties For Toddlers charity. LOL halo!
This is one of the creepy Lobos twins. They are very very creepy. Here's a screenshot from another iteration of this hood:
See? Creepy twins are creepy!
Just to give yo ua better idea of how creepy they are, they were at the graveyard. At night. Thinking about the death plant. And stalking my sim Veronica. Fair enough she's green and a bit mad, but this does not mean that little children hanging out at graveyards at night is not creepy. Because it is.
* flails around and tries to stop channeling Nett and her sideways ramblings *
BACK TO BETTY!!!
Or not, as the case may be...
This is the same Lobos twin who was walking on the street outside the Simovitch house (see above). She arrived at the school on a bicycle. If she had a bicycle why was she walking along the street outside Betty's house? After school had already started? And which house was nowhere near her house? Are the parents even looking after these kids? Or is this a Disney family?
The Help With Homework interaction is adorable. No more standing over the kid, lecturing. The parent actually helps. Cute.
I was a bit afraid of Bob getting caught by the cops so it took me a few days to get up the courage to invite him over after Betty came home from school. Here she is brightening his day with... toothpaste? Because really sparkly teeth make the day seem brighter!
This picture was taken just so I could tell you that I love that picture in the background. Also, Vadim is giving Bob the hairy eyeball and making sure he behaves himself around Betty. His (Vadim's) hairstyle is really bothering me. But I forced myself not to change it.
In TS3 homework is still harrrrrd.
Betty and Fatima were looking too much like twins so Betty got a new haircut.
And then it was the weekend and I accidentally left the game running while I went off for about 10 minutes. I have no idea what happened. I usually hit the P on the keyboard if I so much as need to scratch myself. My sims run around on free will and I usually don't interfere much but I am a voyeur and MUST SEE WHAT THEY ARE DOING! Anyway, this is Saturday night:
Betty invited Bob out to the Camelia Gardens.
Where he agreed to be her BFF. Took me the whole sim week to fulfil that want of hers. Look how stoked she is to have Bob as her BFF :)
Betty is also unflirty. Her expression there is approximately the same as the one her father wore while fishing. Most romantic interactions come with a warning that they will cause a decrease in her mood.
Bob is going to have to drag her down the aisle kicking and screaming. And Getting Brandi born just became that much harder...
I've already started playing Bob's house so there might be another update in the next day or two. YAY!