Sims Eugenics, or, Vlad's Nose (Complete)

[Heart Foam]

I think Don is not kicking. There's the one last photo of him visiting as a ghost, and not long after that the gravestones were moved into Antwan's inventory. The library is one of those rooms that I like a lot, and it captures the right sort of mood. It still exactly the same, but I might want to change the light fittings, or improve it slightly. But it is really nice as it is. They've got two wind chimes there, and its interesting to see which sims like them and which don't. It's like fruit cake -- some do, some don't. The current two Sims of Interest both like the chimes which is nice.

-----

Part 8 

Allie is back! Huzzah.



It's not her best look, but she's a body builder. She looks her best as an elder, having lost some of the muscle tone. But it was super useful to have a sim that could mentor fitness because her son would do the other branch of the fitness career.

I cheated to get that guitar. I had seen other players with a rather rough looking violin, and had never seen it myself. And there were a few Outdoor Retreat things like a homemade bath and toilet that I was researching and not sure how to get. With everything unlocked I bought the family the set of unmusical instruments.

Flirty Vlad visited.





Not much commentary can be given there. What a scene. What things have happened to get to this point. It's one of those items that I don't immediately think of upgrading.

This is the first part of the small Gordon Family Mystery. A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away Jerrica Gordon and her son Channing moved in to... somewhere. Now in these times lived a man named Donald Lothario. Mr Lothario became acquainted with Jerrica and she fell pregnant. She bore him a son, Valentin. And then another son, Rodrigo. And eventually a daughter, Giselle. But we don't care about her.



When Alyssa was at school she met and befriended Rodrigo. Thinking ahead. All Don's many children at least made completing the Social Butterfly aspiration easier that it sometimes is. Kids were popping up everywhere. The Gordons are a very blonde family. Jerrica was blonde, and all the children she had with Don, had her hair colour. (Well, Rodrigo had green eyebrows as an adult.) This becomes interesting later on when a very unexpected child came into the game.

Arianna had her moment on the yoga mat. We all had hope, just a little bit, that Alyssa would look like her mum.



Antwan as a teenager. You saw him blow out the candles last episode (I should totally call these episodes. Only think. Wow.) and here he is. This was the first time I built the rocket project and wasn't sure if it was necessary to do it outside (it's not). Not the building of it. It warns to not launch the thing indoors, and because I'm a responsible man I listen to that and haven't tried. I've since taken to doing all school projects in the library for the focus boost. The Disappointment was that it was only a "good" rocket, not excellent. And I wondered what the difference was.





Sigh. Brace yourselves. This is Nick. Yeah, we got an Camera and gave it to Allie with the idea of taking pictures of the household. You may remember the photoshoot with Vlad and Himalayan Salt. That was done in a little used room in the west wing, adjacent to the plants, but it's such a large contraption that it meant I couldn't have doors or windows where I wanted. So I gave up on that for the handheld SLR and a bench.



A nice family scene with most of the crowd together.



I know I didn't tell anyone to make the ice cream, because it would've been diet ice cream. Arianna is actually wearing a dress that she had when I got her, and figured... let her keep it. Sometimes I challenge myself to keep an item of clothing the stange sim I plucked off the street is wearing. Some of my favourite sims are street rescues.

I was in fact on the lookout for some new blood. I was tired of the unnatural looking family (Arianna aside). The constant side project of keeping families alive involves moving in a female sim when the last member of a household is male. You get her pregnant by the man, then move her out into his house. That may have been the plan with Ms Ayaka Suzuki initially, but at any rate she stayed.





Well, so many thoughts come to mind. She was obviously an option for Antwan, but she was also an astronaut. And I had a rocket - I had needed one to dispose of Vlad. And rocket science is one of the skills needed, and space missions are also needed, as part of the Nerd Brain aspiration. I *love* handy sims. The ability to instantly upgrade stuff is very useful. So if nothing else, Ayaka was going to be my handy sim. And she'd max logic and tutor. Everything would be better with her in the house. 

Next time: less story, but Alyssa ages to teen, and that means CAS portraits of Allie and Nick as adults, Antwan and Alyssa as teens. Hype! So much hype!
 

[oshizu]

My feeble brain is starting to lose track of everyone. May I request a confirmation?
Gen1a: HS + Mr. Unforgettable = Allie
Gen1b: HS + Vlad = Nick
Gen2a: Allie and ? = Alyssa
Gen2b: Allie and DLothario = Antwan
Gen2c: Nick and Arianna = pale pointy daughter

I don't wanna know how the sauna got that filthy...lol.  Vlad is so meticulous!

[Heart Foam]

My feeble brain is starting to lose track of everyone. May I request a confirmation?
Gen1a: HS + Mr. Unforgettable = Allie
Gen1b: HS + Vlad = Nick
Gen2a: Allie and ? = Alyssa
Gen2b: Allie and DLothario = Antwan
Gen2c: Nick and Arianna = pale pointy daughter

I don't wanna know how the sauna got that filthy...lol.  Vlad is so meticulous!

Mostly correct.
HS + Adonis = Allie; Allie + D. Lothario = Antwan
HS + Vlad = Nick; Nick + Arianna = Alyssa

There's no pale pointy daughter, unless the lighting sometimes makes Alyssa look like that. At this point in the story the household is Allie, Nick, Antwan, Alyssa, Arianna, Ayaka.

[FrancescaFiori]

So that's Nick! My word! What a fascinating face. So many downward-pointing angles. Like a series of arrows. But what are you pointing me towards, Nick? What are you trying to say? The man is an enigma. I'll never understand.

I love that you refer to some sims as "street rescues," and I know some of my favorites have fallen into that category as well. I like Ayaka a lot, and I'm glad she's sticking around.

I'm totally here for the portrait hype! Can't wait! Such pins and needles!

[Heart Foam]

@FrancescaFiori Some eyebrows on Nick are almost vertical. There must be some of his mother's genetics affecting the bridge of the nose / eye socket area because not even Vlad is quite so diagonal. On the plus side, it's because he looks so weird he got Arianna; and Allie got that Lothlórien (can't remember) man. So pointy has its perks.

Not that it's very relevant to the genetic experiment, but Nick went into the Tech Guru career where he could be a lonely nerd and unlock the big TV which seems to fill up the fun meter faster than almost anything.

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Part 9. The Outrageously Sexy Valentines Episode!

Okay, so there's a chance that line is mildly facetious. But, to avoid Disappointment I need to put out a warning in case some of the following images might kill the mood. I'd not recommend reading this if you're dressing for date night. This is not full of romance, sentiment, or straight noses... or is it? Gasp! Yes, I'll make this a bit longer than intended just so it ends with that picture. It's appropriate. Hmm. Thinking aloud.

Behold Alyssa as a teenager. The sparkly age-up moment has just happened.



Now your hearts are a-flutter. Allie was catering as you can see. I really wanted to get a gold medal birthday because the last one failed. I so very seldom do Social Events. Weddings, birthdays... I'll do it if there's nothing else happening and the routine needs to be broken up. But events are the exception, not the rule. Because... why aren't they skilling! Or parenting! Or a million other things. Sometimes it doesn't work out. The event goals can be a pain, like getting sims to dance at the same time. So we had another try at that, and failed again as it happens.



Arianna on the yoga mat again. The checkered outdoor lighting is quite deliberate by the way. I amuse myself with details like that. I really like the 7 pillars on the ground floor, but the problem is that the balcony above is stretched to cover them. So either side of the main area of the balcony is a thin 1-tile strip of awkward nothingness. It makes my toes curl looking at it again now. The current design I think is much better.

Nick smiling.



Taking this screenshot is what prompted going in to CAS to take clear pictures of the family. This doesn't feature Ayaka or Arianna because they're not descendants of HS or Vlad.

Nick:



His daughter Alyssa as a teen:




The other side of the family is Allie:



and her son Antwan:



His father is Don, and looks fairly normal. Don produced some good looking children that inherited his eye colour, but sadly not Ant. 

Back at the house, Rod Gordon had aged up to a teenager too - remember child Alyssa playing Voidcritters? That dude. This isn't Alyssa as a teen, that's still Allie in that outfit. It took me a long time to change her wardrobe.

EDIT: It definitely is Alyssa. Obviously. Just look at it.



The lounge still has the big fireplace and big carpet. That changes when Nick reaches level 10 of Tech Guru, so we're not there yet. Rodrigo (or one of his blonde family) was certainly being considered as a potential spouse for Alyssa. It might have been fine, but Don (father of Rodrigo Gordon) was also father of her cousin Antwan. I didn't want Antwan's child to be related to Alyssa's.

Allie was doing very well in a the body builder career. We've got both trophies on a shelf here already. Having a home gym without the energized mood is obviously incomplete, which is another reason I like doing the fitness careers early. The science shower also gives energized, so that's where it found a home. I don't know even now if a sim would get the embarrassed moodlet in that shower if someone walked in to the room. What took me forever to realize is that the shower cures illness too. The science career is really worth doing first. When a house doesn't have these things, it's frustrating. That'll be a (probably) teenage Antwan on the weight machine unlocked by Allie. With such a nice home gym and a fitness tutor, he'd go into the pro athlete branch to get the fancy treadmill. Astronaut Ayaka is on the climbing wall.   



A visit to the Grim Reapers at Oak Alcove. That's his daughter Allie Grim Reaper.



I think this bug started round about when Alyssa was born. I noticed a house I had plopped down had actually been populated by Death himself. So I switched control to him and adopted. Because why wouldn't you want a sim that's on Grim's family tree?! And it had to be a girl, so as to keep the family going. And the only baby girl was (another) Allie. Incidentally, this Grim's name is completely blank. Even in the relationship panel, there's nothing there. I had to supply a family name for Allie. I guess I could have called her Allie Reaper, but Allie Grim Reaper is more comic. Whether he had already been replaced in the job of reaping souls by another reaper I don't know, but he still behaved and was scripted like any other Grim. You can't invite him over, or add him to a group, and asking if he's single prompts the reply that he's much too busy for that sort of thing.

@oshizu was asking questions about the nature of this Grim on another thread and I was keen to find out. Arianna was still around as an elder, and she got herself overexerted with rocket woohoo for the cause of finding out if the Grim who showed up was the resident down the road or not. It's not. There's a new guy. But as I'm slow to update sims wardrobes, Arianna as an elder was wearing something far too enticing and too... Valentines Day... and inappropriate for her age. I'm not posting that screenshot. Imagine for yourselves the scene: on her knees next to the rocket, checking her pulse, Grim with his tablet, streetlight, withered leaves, somber music, the chanting of laments. Exactly so.

So Arianna is dead.

New Grim Reaper was insta-friended, and both were spotted at the gym while Antwan was completing a milestone for his athletic aspiration.



------

Excluding the Into The Future House Update, this is the 100th picture! Happy Valentines! The cynic in me says relentless commercialization of Feelings is a bad thing. The hopeless romantic in me says, have a floating V day. Have it when South Africa next win a cricket match! Then when it happens you enthusiastically tell friends and colleagues "Happy Valentines! What are your plans?!" and watch the bemusement in their eyes. (The cynic in me says waiting for SA to win is the definition of hopeless. Gah. Sorry. Tangent. But... they were so rubbish. The batting just goes to pieces.)

Either way, flirty drinks is what you need. 

[oshizu]

I appreciate your setting me straight on the family tree!
As for "pale pointy grand-daughter," I vaguely recall you referring to "Vlad's pointy grand-daughter" in the other thread, before any of us knew the whole story.
I must have mentally inserted "pale" on my own, based on the silly assumption that Vlad's skintone would persist. Bless Arianna.

Thank you for the au sec witty commentary.
Your update was the first thing I read this morning (yes, even before the daily news) and it had me in stitches.

I enjoyed the Gen3 shots!  I love how Alyssa has Vlad's disapproving, downturned mouth but with Arianna's full lips!
Needless to say, I feel terrible that Arianna had to die to satisfy my morbid curiosity but you mentioned that she was already an elder, yes?

Wow, the 100th picture already! Congrats on that! *helps myself to a glass of the bubbly on the bar counter

[FrancescaFiori]

Ah, well. Just this once. *sips Cupid juice*

Thank you for the marvelous holiday episode, and I'm very sorry about your cricket team.

I had no idea the scientist shower could cure illness! I usually don't use it because I'm afraid my sims will make themselves energized at inconvenient times, but I'm definitely pulling it out of storage now! That's amazing!

Don's genes work fast. Antwan is very handsome. Alyssa wasn't quite as fortunate, but I do kind of like her extra-pouty lower lip. It's cute.

I loved the checkerboard lighting on the outdoor shot! Very clever, but also subtle, and makes for a nice night time shot.

[Heart Foam]

@oshizu Yup. She was an elder though. I synched up the birth of the next generation, which is the next big event. Sadly some things happen off camera. But we had to make room for kids, and bumping off Arianna was fine. I went back through my screenshots and found this one. I shouldn't have missed it.



I realized I mislabeled someone as Vlad's progeny when they were on the HS + Adonis side about a day after it was said, but this whole epic saga of noses serves to clear that up.   

@FrancescaFiori I thought there had to be more to that shower - because the energized buff is usually not helpful. It feels like a negative to balance a positive. And medicine also makes sims energized. It wasn't so much discovery by accident as a hunch. I don't know if it's something the guide notes. Now, at the first sign off illness and I send them to take a shower. As a gym shower it's perfect.

Alyssa has the confidence and sparkling wit of a secret agent which is a plus! The visit to the Grims was her last day as a teen, and the last picture is 2 or 3 days later. So she's a young adult, and the Cupid Juice was for her. Gen 4. That sort of thing.   

[Heart Foam]

Part 10 - Wives and Daughters

Allie, the older of the first two children is an elder. And finally got some new outfits. Enigmatic Nick has completed the Tech Guru career because the special tv is on the wall. Sadly the big fireplace doesn't fit there any more. Well, it fits, but would look ridiculous. The home cinema downstairs doesn't have the UnorthoBox console, or any console, which is fun for sims playing together. 



Much furniture rearrangement happens. This was a first attempt.

When the last episode closed (romantically), Antwan had been a young adult for a few days and had begun the pro athlete career, and his cousin Alyssa had just aged to young adult. And I had been looking around town and at all the known sims for interesting genetics. As fond as we are of Ayaka (and we'll see more of her), I wanted to introduce different colours to the family.

There weren't many options. Yonder red haired gentlewoman is someone you've seen before if you've seen earlier posts. When she was seduced by Mr Lothario, entirely blameless on her part... probably, she had just become a young adult. And her aging was delayed slightly by childbirth. So I knew she was close to being an elder, but not knowing how close meant I couldn't delay moving her in. She had a daughter with Don, Ember Moreno, who inherited Don's eye colour. With a slimify serum and a makeover, Ember might look somewhat normal. But Antwan is already Don's son, and romantic involvement with a half-sister is something the game thankfully isn't fond of. So, with all that plotting explained, welcome Anissa. She has shockingly blue eyes to go with that hair colour, and was two days from elder when she moved in -- nothing a cloned potion of youth can't solve.

Alyssa's man was harder to get. The Cupid Juice was for him (and her). If you cast your minds back to the first introduction of blonde child Rodrigo playing Voidcritters, as I said then, the Gordon family that originally moved into a house was Jerrica and her son Channing. Jerrica's children with Mr Lothario wouldn't do, but Channing was still around as an elder! I can't say if there was some trait incompatibility, or he just couldn't look at her nose, but Channing was not ready for lurve. The old group-member-sauna-woohoo-trick was very useful. I'm glad it exists.



Both Alyssa and Anissa fell pregnant within hours of each other. Anissa and Antwan were (are) super close. Maybe my favourite sim couple, so I found the time to marry 'em eventually. But Anissa initially struggled to make friends with the other inmates, and never got friendly with Ayaka. She's a typical street rescue and has no charisma skill, no "Incredibly Friendly" trait. Ayaka and Alyssa were excellent friends. So these are the two women pregnant with generation 4. How time flies. Alyssa would have a son and Antwan would have a daughter.

In the library that evening, Don makes his last visit as a ghost.



Other views of the library so far (I think) have managed to not face the fireplace.

Followed by...



... an inexplicable picture of the ground floor. Not many pearls of wisdom to be gathered here. I think that's Antwan standing in the dining room. There's a fancy mirror there for raising charisma, and that's hopefully what he's doing. Or he's putting down a drink.



Because drinking is a favourite hobby of the adults in the house. Alyssa ends up maxing mixology... and I literally never pursued that. She's a spy.

The final ghost pic. Fittingly, it's the pointy founder herself, Her Self.



After this the gravestones were moved into an inventory. (But they are put somewhere else later on. Antwan pays a visit.)



I took a few pictures of the basement level trying to show how it all fits together. I had visions of just putting these in the "share your screenshots" thread, but they arrive here. Other sims come and go from the scene, but Antwan remains. At the bar.

By this point of the pointy experiment I've taken to carefully positioning the view to best highlight the pointy extremities of certain sims. A beautiful silhouette of Alyssa's appendage.



In preparation for two babies at once, this underused room (look how formal! how posh!) was repurposed as their room. Eventually. They'd spend their baby lives on the first floor landing of course. Because that toughens 'em up.





There's the other kid's room in the basement, but it was too small, and one feels slightly bad for trapping mini sims underground. Remember how Nick tried to escape? Exactly. No repeat of that bid for freedom. Anissa became head gardener, and didn't have a 9-to-5. Her garden would earn far more anyway. So she would be permanently on call as a parent (at least for her own child). So for once the family was well prepared. I was fairly sure the crystals' energized mood wouldn't influence toddlers, and that MySims trophies (to go on those shelves) similarly wouldn't make them playful, but I thought I'd find out for sure. I didn't think of incense, but I know better now!

Next time: remodeling the house, babies!, and a night out which has (for now) unforeseen consequences
 

[FrancescaFiori]

Who needs a fireplace when you can watch the fireplace channel on an enormous TV? Good job, Nick, on scoring that particular career reward.

Shame on Channing for making things so difficult for our dear Alyssa! Serves him right not being in any pictures! Glad that club sauna woohoo trick still works. May they never fix that bug!

Love the timing on the shot of Antwan at the bar! The lurid sexy gnome painting on the TV is perfectly framed.

"The founder herself, Her Self." That's my new favorite!

Very excited for the incoming double birth!

[oshizu]

I'm really loving this story, Heart Foam, which is just as much a story of the house as the genetic experiment.

Woooo, how cool! That shot of the pool with the gym below is very nice. Do I even spy a climbing wall down there?
Antwan is lucky to have matched up with Anissa, though he seems to be spending more time with the bar, lol.

And I join Francesca in looking forward to more nooboos!

[Heart Foam]

@FrancescaFiori Yes, quite lurid. What a picture. One wonders how Antwan wasn't transfixed by it. Channing was eventually asked to visit, and have his photo taken for plot reasons because I was deeply confused by his child.

@oshizu The gym only took this shape because the wall needed a double volume, and it also helped create space for the punching bag. In this moderately fancy house they really ought to have all the types of equipment. The house is very much part of it, and I appreciate the encouragement of y'all who post. The house is something that outlives the sims and changes with them, and hopefully all 5 readers can place any particular scene and it doesn't feel out of context.
 

[Heart Foam]

Part 11. Bleak House.

A peaceful morning. If you peer closely through the window (or read the next sentence) you'll learn there are two new members of the household!



Anissa also finds her way to the mat. One of the group activities is "do spa activities" so that's why this happens. We don't ask how that sunlight is getting there. And that's a good reference picture for the immanent remodeling of this balcony.

Allie posing for pictures.



One of the Cat & Dogs tops that looks good on her. A much softer look than her body building days. The house was getting fuller than I'd like, and Allie and Nick bought a big house in Brindleton Bay to escape the noise of this one.

The first thing done to the exterior was to add a roof. This house was after all modelled after a chateau with typically high-pitched roofs, and that's what happened here.



The idea is to match the arched windows on top with the arches below. That meant swapping out the vampire arches with these, but the problem is there is no 3-tile arched windows that really work. These aren't really windows at all. I think I've done okay in not making it feel too open, but I'm not 100% convinced. I do like the previous wall-of-glass, but then you lose the symmetry.



So an awning was added to give some protection. I do like that. That's a win. I wanted to like that fence too, but it does clash with the window's "fence".

This close-up is to show how the long thin arms of the balcony were dealt with. It's now a much more pleasing rectangle, but that left the pillars below looking a bit untethered.



So for the bits above the pillars I used the same smallest fence as with the gazebo, and added wall trimming, and I think that's a win too. From the inside it looks like this...



... an effortless segue into introducing nooboos. Antwan had to have a daughter, and nearest to the camera in pink (hashtag gender stereotypes - and pink was once more associated with boys) is Kelly! Alyssa had to have a son, and in the blue is... Quentin! They won't die of pneumonia - the thick curtains would be drawn at night. They'll be right. No worries.

But Anissa is such an excellent sim parent (as am I), she at least did a once a week check for deadly diseases.



I only jest! (She wouldn't do that. She'd be spraying bugs and weeding in the garden.)

Nick came for a visit, and I really wanted a picture with him as I hadn't taken one since his elder makeover, so Alyssa took a secret agent selfie. 



On the plus side! If the secret agency found that on her phone, at least people might start believing her nose is real.

We tend to be rather homebound, domestic sims. But I rather missed having aliens around, and I had been thinking how interesting and different some of my alien sims had been, and had noticed that all my saves were all rather human -- in a variety of colours and shapes, but not purple! Or blue! And I rather felt the need for variety. And the "hey it's Alien Night at the bar" came at a time when Quentin and Kelly could be left for an evening without feeling they were falling behind on learning to potty, so we went.



Ayaka could also use making a friend or two outside the house. Sometimes her social meter dropped quite low. If that purple alien had half decent traits I'd have considered moving her in permanently. There was also a large house in Oasis Springs with a single, but aging man in need of a female touch. Someone to share the house with; to fill it with the noise of little feet. I moved her in, and then moved her out again to his house when, after a beautiful whirlwind romance* she was pregnant with his child.

*not really. Just keeping the population alive, and hoping for purple sims.

A fun night. Many new alien friends. In hindsight, this was definitely the cause of... things.

One more shot of impossible sunshine, and Quentin, and Anissa, and how the rear façade and pillars and such all looks.



-----

Next episode: The Gordon Family Mystery, toddlers, and the drawing room becomes fancy

[oshizu]

The fencing detail on the balcony arches and on the balcony itself is so clever!
I was shocked by that shot of Alyssa with her father Nick. Before reading the caption, I'd thought it was Vlad!

Ayaka is looking good at Alien's Night!
Now that Allie and Nick have moved out, I look forward to more genetic shenanigans in this main house!

[FrancescaFiori]

That mustache suits Nick so well! When he smiles he looks almost handsome!

I like what you've done with the windows-that-aren't-windows on the balcony. I haven't been able to find a use for them myself, so I'm grateful for the inspiration. Glad to know the draft doesn't bother the babies.

I like that Anissa is carrying on the tradition of attractive wife practicing yoga. It's a good one.

I'm very excited to have all of this mysterious foreshadowing cleared up, and to see what new, colorful sims turn up in your world.