In which the author gags

That probe had definitely been loaded. Celina grew huge over the next couple of days and gave birth to a little boy named Derek. Derek, oddly, had black hair, which must have come from his alien father. Bastion was pleased as could be to be a grandfather. Finally feeling fulfilled from all of those dates with the now-dropped Erica, his wants had started to be centered around continuing his side of the family.

Celina built a nursery for Derek in the basement, in Brionna's old room. Where was Brionna? Well, we'll cover that a bit later. Of course, the room was decked out in various tributes to Jumbuktu in addition to the normal nursery fare.

Ski faster! Avatar of avatar of Jumbuk must fly like breeze over slopes. Faster, slave!

Celestina and Lucas's brood were growing up well, and loved each other very much, thank you. Daphne preferred a good puddle over silly skilling toys. Really, who needs a stupid talking bunny head? It has no body! That's creepy and cruel. Dylan approved of Daphne's aversion. Afterall, the only reason he had deemed to play with the disembodied toy was to avoid paying attention during talks of birds and bees.

While Celestina and Lucas had no plans on creating another child, their romance was still alive and well. And annoying. Really annoying. All that reproduction had bumped their chemistry from two bolts to three, and the two were basically paws-on at every moment. Seriously, give me a break.

An excavation project further down the beach had uncovered four strange stones. Of course the place was immediately commercialized and advertised as a great tourist attraction.

Eat flapjacks!
See the light show!
Play on a pirate ship!
Walk on hot coals like a native!
Similarity to torture device purely coincidental. Owners of Tiki Ruins (tm) not responsible for medical expense or pain and suffering due to severe burns. Flapjacks contain monodextros solvinate and nuts.

In which there is a baby and a business

Life for Celestina and Lucas was going well. Reyna had grown into some sort of pincer mutt, and the large home was beginning to be decorated to their liking. They spent most of their spare time hanging out on the rooftop deck tossing around a baseball and playing at growing some fresh vegetables, though they often forgot about the crops and let them founder.

"Mommy and Daddy are going to try for another brother or a sister. Would you like that?"

"Sheep go BAAAA!"

"No matter what, we'll love you just as much as we do now, okay?"

"Cow go MOOO!"

Luckily, the bedroom was one of the rooms in the house that had been finished, meaning that the couple had a great place to try for another baby.

"Woo hoo! No more playing with the dumb pink bunny!"

Dylan grew into a child just as well as could be expected, while Celestina anticipated the arrival of their next child...that same night. Meet little Daphne Mayo, second of the third generation and a blond like the rest of the family.

While his job as a Hall of Famer was fun and lucrative, Lucas found he had too much free time and not enough to do with it. He started a new business on the yard of an open lot close by Dance! The wares: chairs. Four of 'em. Cheap. However, the local business columnist, Lisa O'Brien, was impressed by his attitude and gave the business a Best of the Best award that very first day.

Lucas chose to keep the business finances and the house finances separate, yet still made enough to put four walls up and landscape. The lot was named The Furnished abode and expanded to selling couches...because sometimes more than one person needs to sit down at a time.

Townie Lovin'

One aspect of realism that I love in my neighborhood is watching townies create relationships. Inevitably, some townies will have personalities that can't help but clash. In a former neighborhood, I had one particular townie sim who would get in a fight every single time she visited a lot. She had a favorite punching bag, but in her absence would take on pretty much anyone.

Prospect Beach so far is lacking in the MOAR FIGHT category. But what's it's not lacking is plenty of townies getting it on with each other in public (aka The Hibbity Quotient). I find it interesting to note which townie has fallen in love with which other townie, and I try to avoid adding romantic entanglements between my playable sims and "taken" townie sims. For now.

Sometimes townie love gets in the way of my fluid plans. There is a particular townie I've liked since she was a teen...one Belinda Cannon. She's a frequent patron at Dance! and has so much personality. She's black with this unreal red hair she wears in a long bowl cut. As a teen, she sported a leopard-skin body suit. As an adult, she's toned it down a bit but is wearing jeans, a jacket, and a leopard-skin tank top. I don't change townie appearances until they marry in (if then), so this was all chance. She's a bit dorky and seems to be friends with everyone. I'd been planning on marrying her into my playables, but what does she do at a as-yet-unshared wedding? Yup. Makes out with and falls in love with another townie. Bah. Another curve ball.

Thanks to:
Autonomous Casual Romance (ACR), by TwoJeffs, formerly of MATY and now of Inteen.

In which there is a shrine

Bastion finally reached his elderhood (perhaps that sunburn sapped the last of his youth). It was odd how he had aged a few days after his twin. He also didn't have any saggy bits like Brionna did...that we know of.

Give Epicurus chili. Avatar of Jumbuk must have firey breath to scare the unbelievers.

In the middle of the night, one of the neighborhood strays dropped off a squirmy white bundle. It was a kitten, presumably of Epicurus's get. The family named the kitten Evaluous, and built a cat haven in the garage, since Evaluous couldn't climb up the steps to the house. When she grew up, she looked exactly like a lighter version of Epicurus, though lacking a certain dollup of imposed insanity.
Ok, she did seem to share Epicurus's furniture-destroying talents. At least a bed can't be fully destroyed when occupied.

Celina spent a few hours every night looking for her ancestors, hoping they would come and give her a little probing and the resultant child. Her sister-cousin had already had a child with that filthy, cheating human of hers.
In an effort to appease Jumbuktu, who obviously must have been angry with her and blocking her efforts towards celestial attention, Celina built a shrine in her room. The spot was an opulent tribute to Jumbuktu's island origins, complete with a chest of shinies to bring out the glow in his eyes.
"Please, Jumbuktu. Let me know how I can please you. Should I teepee the money-grubber's house? Should I work to create a rift between Celestina and that awful Lucas? Would you like more gold?"

Something seemed to work.

In which Bastion gets burned

Brionna felt the need to do a jig in the front yard at dusk. To her surprise, her feet actually threw sparks.

"No, Erica. I still love you. Uh-huh. I just don't think this is a good time to get married."

"Bastion! My boobs are sagging!"

"Wha---Brionna, just put a better bra on---where was I? Oh. Erica, why don't we go out on one last date, huh? No! No! I didn't say 'last'! Must have been your imagination."
Celestina used the money her mother gave her for graduation to buy a huge home next door. Did I mention that the Mayos are sitting on a bank account the size of a town's annual budget? This was a drop in the proverbial bucket. The house was two stories with a roof-top greenhouse and patio, an enormous pool, four bedrooms, and three bathrooms. Unfortunately, it didn't come furnished.
Celestina and Lewis were married in the front yard, with a small guest list. Celestina had invited her mother and uncle, only to have Celina show up and snicker during the entire ceremony. Needless to say, Celestina kicked her sister-cousin out of the house as soon as the ceremony was over, causing a bit of a damper to the wedding party. Everyone was so distracted that Lucas accidentally took Celestina's name instead of the traditional format they had planned.
Lucas's bridal gift to Celestina was a puppy they named Reyna, and a little bun in the oven. The house might be sparsely furnished, but it was certainly starting to feel full with Celestina's expanding belly.
"Ugh! This is not fun! Why did I have to want children?"

"It's so exciting!"

"Can it."

Welcome, Dylan Mayo, first child of the fourth generation.
"Bastion, don't you think you've been laying out for long enough?"
"Nah, it's fine. Aliens don't burn."



"Dammit."

In which there is a schism

Avatar of Jumbuk must keep up strength. Nummy pork chops! Make more pork chops, slave!

Celestina and Celina began helping at Dance!, as the club had reached level 10 and was absolutely packed between the hours of 9:00 pm and 5:00 am. Understandably, the teens could only work during the weekends, and the family had to change the bar offerings to juice-only. Many of Vista View's newly grown teens started frequenting the club.
Celestina found one patron incredibly interesting. His name was Lucas, and he was human. This fact angered Celina to no end.

"Have you forgot what that harlot Erica was trying to do? Split us up! And now you're entertaining some older man who is definitely planning the same sort of thing!"

"He's doing no such thing, Celina. Besides, I want a family."

"You have a family!"

"I want one that doesn't come from a probe, dammit."
The college education that Bastion and Brionna were denied due to lack of funds was fully within reach for the current generation, considering that the family was now sitting on a bank account the size of a small town's yearly budget. Celina started her four years at Prospect University, in the dorms. Her room was spacious, if a bit cookie-cutter since she didn't deem to decorate or even bring a different set of sheets.
Unfortunately, living in the dorms meant that Celina had to put up with a huge number of humans every day. If Jumbuktu could see these conditions! She tried to keep away from their poisoning influence as much as possible, at least separating herself from the crowd during required group work.

Celestina took nearly the opposite tactic once she got to college, seeking out her fellow students at every opportunity, and inviting Lewis over for a bit of slow dancing by the campus band's stage.
"I swear, Celestina! Did you learn nothing from what happened to my father? Humans will only play with your emotions to get what they want, then drop you once they tire of you."

"Celina. Bastion broke up with Erica, not the other way around."

"Because she tricked him."

"Whatever. Lucas loves me."
Celina could accept Celestina's refusal to worship Jumbuktu. She could accept her Family ways. After all, weren't their parents Pleasure sims, which are ten times more flighty than Family sims? But consorting with a human? Allowing him to pinch her tush in public? That was disgusting and unacceptable.

"Daddy, I'm so mad at her. I can't even explain it. She's so....she's so....arrgh!"

Keeping things fresh

Let's face it, The Sims2 came out in 2004 (thanks jade). That's approximately 4 years ago. For someone who has been with the game since its debut, eventually there are only so many times you can reach the top of a career or have a sim have ten children or mysteriously lose a pool ladder. So what do you do when you reach the point where keeping happy little sims perfectly made and played becomes stale?

For some, the answer is to play challenges. I've tried challenges. I actually played an Alphabet family through to the eleventh generation, before they added those silly rules about having three children each generation, etc. I've played a legacy through to the fifth generation. But in challenges, I always feel like I'm playing towards someone else's goals and ideals. When I have to kill off a certain sim just to get a full set of colors of ghosts, there's something wrong with the world. Really. Think of the pixels, people!

There's really three options at the point where the game becomes routine. You break from the game completely, you turn to custom content creation, or you do everything you can to mix things up. Well, I like the game too much to break from it. I'm mediocre at custom content creation, and am really only inspired to create what I need for a given situation. So what did I do? I basically stopped making the big choices in my sims' lives. I use a program called Random Stuff made by Hook. It's a really simple program that you can use to code decisions into. I use it to roll aspirations, name babies, answer yes or no questions, pick turn-ons and turn-offs, even to pick base face templates and genetics for CAS sims.

So let's take a particular sim. When this sim is born, I use Random Stuff to give me a name. Name - Ocean. Ocean will be a Fortune sim who likes vampires and cologne, and doesn't care for fat sims. Ocean would like to go after the Law career line, but he is not allowed to go to college, meaning that he can't be in that career line unless he works in it as a teen (I have a hack that tightens career requirements).

It's through this randomization that I get sims like Bastion and Brionna. Honestly, I don't really care for Pleasure sims. I don't care for repetitive lifetime wants like dating X sims. But that's what I got, so that's what I played. And they did grow on me, much more than yet another family sim who marries their highschool sweetheart and proceeds to pop out a few babies and top the Business career track.