The Loveland Random Town Jump

[Trip]

Maybe you could adopt elder pets? It's sad but it's also sad in real life too, yet abandoned elder animals still need homes and get them! (I keep joking that I need to rescue a senior chihuahua to teach my other one some manners) I've never completed the LTW either but because the thoughts were never planted in my head.

[Beks]

Maybe you could adopt elder pets? It's sad but it's also sad in real life too, yet abandoned elder animals still need homes and get them! (I keep joking that I need to rescue a senior chihuahua to teach my other one some manners) I've never completed the LTW either but because the thoughts were never planted in my head.

That's a good idea too. And you're totally right. You know, I like the idea of Angela taking in some elder pets someday. It may not happen for a long time, but I'll keep these ideas in the back of my mind.

[Beks]

Chapter 76 - More Fire



Angela makes a very cute scientist. Even the logic kind. See, she makes this cute little pouty face while she concentrates. Is this why I had her join that career? No, mm-mm, absolutely not.



See, I'm mainly having Angela try and discover potions because the first wish she popped upon moving in was to discover a potion. But she hasn't discovered a single one and has gotten singed about 47 times. *sigh*



Oh well. It's graduation time anyway. Time to shower and put on a stupid outfit.



The family arrives at City Hall and finds a protest in progress. What are they protesting, creepy murderers? Or like...comedy? You decide.



Angela graduates with merit and is voted Most Likely to Get Arrested. Gosh, I sure hope she doesn't get arrested as a scientist. Somehow that would suggest even more nefarious deeds than just stealing cars or whatever it is criminal sims do.



Nah, Angela has plans to be a very ethical scientist. She's started taking care of Anastasia's garden as practice.



She also spends time getting to know her future sister-in-law, who consistently defeats her at dominoes.



Heather is doing well in her skills. Her highest level is actually cooking, but it's obviously not high enough to prevent YET ANOTHER fire in the Loveland household. Heather starts panicking before there are even visible flames.



Anastasia: "Dear God, what is that horrible smell?"
Heather: "IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PANCAKES BUT IT TURNED INTO FIRE, I'M SORRY MOM, I'M SORRY!"



As usual, nobody does anything but stand around and scream as the flames start to melt the countertops. I have to make Angela extinguish the flames myself.

"Is this going to be, like, a regular thing?"

Yes. Welcome to the family, dear.



Firefighter: "Jeez, you all again? Why is it always you guys?"



"Uh...do you need me to call a medic, too?"

It's another harmless fire that just costs us a few thousand dollars and negates one of Franky's food quality upgrades. Still, I'm getting a wee bit tired of these near-disasters. I think Peter cursed us.



Angela's thriving, as you can probably tell by the fact that I've mostly just been focusing on her lately. (Archie and Heather are just boring teens, okay?) She happily introduces herself to Georgiana and successfully wins her approval (from a celebrity standpoint, at least).



Within her first few days, Angela gets promoted twice in the science career.



And as for Franky? He's still kickin' along, rapidly approaching Shantell levels of ancient. Now I'm grateful that I installed Showtime, because it comes with some forms of entertainment that can keep aimless elders busy for a while. Such as karaoke.



Franky makes great use of ALL my expansion packs. He becomes enough of a jock to start practicing "the school cheer" wherever he goes. I'm surprised he even remembers that from his Twinbrook days.



Anastasia goes on a couple more dates with Ira Lee. They're not official or anything, but it's nice that Anastasia has someone to get flirty with when the urge arises.



Apparently, the urge has arisen enough times recently that Anastasia has been harboring a secret. A pretty big one. So big that it wakes her up in the darkness before dawn, hours before the rest of the family is awake.



She calmly makes the bed...



...and goes into labor. I don't think I hid this as well as I meant to. But maybe you're surprised? Maybe?



Midway through, as the sun starts to rise, sweet Nibs comes over and offers his ghostly company in support of the baby's arrival.



And then...



...Anastasia gives birth to a baby girl named Freya.



As the family starts to stir, Anastasia carries her new daughter all the way downstairs in order to set her on the ground and have the usual "eww, a ghost!" reaction.



But then she shows how she TRULY feels. Welcome to the family, Freya. Welcome very much.

[deedee_828]

Yay!!!! Blue ghost kitties and now a fiery ghost nooboo! Welcome Freya!!!

[Beks]

Chapter 77 - In Which Party Dancers Do Not Dance



Nobody is prepared for a fire ghost baby in the family. Nobody at all.



Not even Anastasia. I don't know if it's a glitch or what, but she makes this face a LOT these days.

*sniff sniff* "Is something burning?"



After he gets over the initial "What the...?!?", Franky is head over heels for his new granddaughter. He really shouldn't have lived long enough to meet her, but here we are!



Archie has his usual reaction. We'll just leave him to it, I think.



After he finishes fainting, Archie heads to his birthday cake. He's finally aging up to young adult!







Archie is a handsome fella. Which is too bad, because now he's Unflirty. Good thing he already has a girlfriend who's part of the household, so I can pretend this trait doesn't exist. Archie's other traits are Neurotic, Loves the Outdoors, Coward, and Photographer's Eye. He selects Living in the Lap of Luxury as his LTW. Hopefully he can make a lot of money with photograph and not have to travel? Maybe?

I'm initially upset about the Unflirty trait, but then I remember that these Sims usually do fine with people they really like. Fortunately, Archie and Angela are best friends AND boyfriend and girlfriend.



"Look who's all grown up now. Rawrrr."
"Please don't do that, Angie. I'm already about to pass out from fear and you're making it worse."



"Right. Sorry. What are you about to pass out over? Is there a ghost nearby or something?"



"Nope, just this.



"Will you marry me, Angela Lancaster? Please say yes before I lose consciousness."



"Oh Archie, of course! Yes, yes!"



Archie manages not to pass out and successfully takes his new fiancee home to plan the wedding. Meanwhile, Tink is aging up to elder...



...with such enthusiasm that she goes slightly off-camera.

Angela pops a wish to throw a bachelorette party, and since we haven't thrown one in forever...let's throw one!



The bride-to-be starts the event by cooking grilled cheese for herself. This takes her a very long time and it's quite a while before she gets around to acknowledging that her own party is happening.



Franky signs autographs in the meantime.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Loveland!! I've always wanted to meet a centenarian!"
"What about a politician of the people who abolished a monarchy and freed the town of Hidden Springs from ceremonial rule?"
"Huh? No, I was talking about YOU, the second-longest-living Sim in the history of this Random Town Jump!"
"Sigh..."



When the bride-to-be does finally change into her outfit, she promptly passes out from exhaustion. Oops. That's my bad.

A ten-second nap followed by an invigorating elixir fixes that issue. Special thanks to the party dancer who volunteers to wake her up.



"Ms. Lancaster? You ordered two party dancers. We are here. Where do we dance?"



As it turns out, having ghosts around (in baby or cat form) makes everybody forget what they're doing constantly. That includes the party dancers, who never actually get around to dancing. Instead, most of the party looks like this--everybody standing around the bar looking bored.



The mother of the groom-to-be gets things going with a little karaoke (much to Franky's disapproval).



"Um, do you HAVE to be doing this right now? I haven't had enough nectar to make this enjoyable."



"Well, let's fix that problem straightaway!"
*glubglubglub*



After that, Angela joins in with her future mother-in-law, still wearing her pajamas because apparently you can't get that bachelorette dress back once you change out of it. I swear, the entire rest of the party consists of this. And only this. Am I great at throwing parties, or what?



Poor Franky gets sick of the noise (and unsatisfactory fan attention) long before the party dies down and heads into the nursery to rock with Freya. Tomorrow, there's a wedding to be had.

[deedee_828]

Unfortunately, the game mechanics have everyone constantly annoyed by ghosts, whatever age, whether playable or not.

It was definitely a big part of the reason that I chose not to make Kimberly my heir back in Midnight Hollow, as her partner was Antony Salas, an active ghost who was born in game to Jay and Tatiana Salas.

The other reason was that traveling removes ghostliness from playable ghosts, and in a Town Jump game I didn't want to constantly have to make them ghosts again.
It's easy enough to do with Nraas mods, but not something I wanted to do on a regular basis, as the game has enough glitches without doing something to cause more.

The idea of playable ghosts is great, but having to deal with the side affects during actual game play and traveling, not so much fun.

But I did want to warn you since ghostly Freya joined the family, in case you didn't know about the travel bug with ghosts.

[hazelnut]

Yay!  Ghostboo!  Although probably not a ghost fairy, judging by the lack of sparkles.  This is certainly turning into a varied family .

The other reason was that traveling removes ghostliness from playable ghosts, and in a Town Jump game I didn't want to constantly have to make them ghosts again.

I wonder whether that's changed on a patch or whether it's just starting a new game file?  My Life States family travelled a lot and none of them lost the ghost overlay.

[Beks]

Unfortunately, the game mechanics have everyone constantly annoyed by ghosts, whatever age, whether playable or not.

It was definitely a big part of the reason that I chose not to make Kimberly my heir back in Midnight Hollow, as her partner was Antony Salas, an active ghost who was born in game to Jay and Tatiana Salas.

The other reason was that traveling removes ghostliness from playable ghosts, and in a Town Jump game I didn't want to constantly have to make them ghosts again.
It's easy enough to do with Nraas mods, but not something I wanted to do on a regular basis, as the game has enough glitches without doing something to cause more.

The idea of playable ghosts is great, but having to deal with the side affects during actual game play and traveling, not so much fun.

But I did want to warn you since ghostly Freya joined the family, in case you didn't know about the travel bug with ghosts.

I didn't know about that travel bug. When you say "traveling removes ghostliness", do you mean they just become regular humans? That's wild. I don't travel very often (and if I do it this generation, I'll probably just take Archie so he can level up photography), so it shouldn't be an issue.

Yay!  Ghostboo!  Although probably not a ghost fairy, judging by the lack of sparkles.  This is certainly turning into a varied family .

I wonder whether that's changed on a patch or whether it's just starting a new game file?  My Life States family travelled a lot and none of them lost the ghost overlay.

Freya is indeed just a ghost and not a ghost fairy. I guess that was too much to hope for. But she was still a fun surprise! (Well, not a surprise, I guess, since I planned it.)

[Beks]

Chapter 78 - Love & Even More Fire



A quick cat update. Once the ghost kittens age up to ghost cats, I decide that it's too much to keep all three of them in the household. Five pets is a lot, okay? So after the kittens grow up, I go into Edit Town and give each of the other Loveland households a new ghost kitty. Curly goes to Gilbert's family, and Tiger Lily goes to Theo's. (Tiger Lily is Aggressive, so I think she'll fit in fine over there.) Nibs stays with us and promptly takes on full responsibility for pouncing on his mother.



And now, it's wedding time! The little park at the end of the road has been turned into a rather scrappy-looking wedding venue, and somehow, the maid has escaped her duties and come along for the ride.



Here's the groom, looking Neurotic and Cowardly about what's about to go down.



This wedding consists entirely of Lovelands, except for the maid (who just reads for a while and then leaves) and the mother of the bride. Gilbert gets the party started by asking his sister-in-law to dance.



Ah look, Christine has aged up to elder! She and Franky are still drawn to each other like two angry magnets, eager to yell each other hoarse.



Here's the only non-Loveland, Angela's mother Lola, looking regal in her fur-collared coat. (This screenshot is taken after she goes up to the photo booth and takes a cell phone picture of Angela while Angela is inside it. I think Lola might be going a little crazy in her old age.)

Christine and Theo's youngest son, Horace, has aged up into a fine looking young gentleman.



"Good evening, Grandfather. How goeth being old?"



And here's Angela at last! Awww, she even gets Archie dancing in spite of his overwhelming fear of everything!



The sun begins to set in earnest and we really need to get this ceremony going. Franky sets the mood from all the way on the other side of the park.



Lola: "So are you two going to get married, or what?"
Angela: "Yes, mother. Just as soon as you move out of frame."



Thank goodness I put in those spotlights. The world goes inky-maroon as the next heir and his lady exchange vows.





Congratulations to the newest Mr. and Mrs. Loveland!



Anastasia continues cheering and throwing rice for a while afterwards. Cousin Rasheed sobs uncontrollably (and loudly).



It's fully dark by the time everybody makes it over to the cake. The spotlight doesn't look as good over here. Everything kind of looks like a horror movie.



After the guests leave, Archie and Angela settle in for their wedding night right there in the park, where a torchlit tent is waiting for them up on that weird stage thing.



"Are you SURE there aren't any zombies or ghosts out here waiting to jump us??"
"Babe, your dad and cat and baby sister are all ghosts. You need to get over that fear. And to answer your question, NO. I know you're just afraid of woohoo! Now come inside!"



In the morning, it's time for another exciting family event.



Anastasia blows out the candles for baby Freya, and naturally, the cake and table and chairs immediately go up in flames.



Is this because Freya is a fire ghost? It must be because Freya is a fire ghost.



"Fear not, Lovelands! I am here to spray your glass doors with industrial-strength windex!"



Angela: "You idiot! The TABLE is on fire, not the window!"
Firefighter: "I assumed you had that under control! This window needs to be cleaned!"

After a fierce battle of the fire extinguishers, the fire is put out. Jeez Louise, I think this is our fourth fire in Lucky Palms. Did we anger the old gods or something?



Right. Let's try that again.



Freya makes it to the sparkles this time.



I forget to take a CAS picture, which would be somewhat pointless anyway, but Freya ages up into a very cute little ghost girl. Her traits are Loner and Clumsy (lots of introverts this generation), and she likes R&B, Cheese Tofu Steak, and Grey. And just in case it isn't clear...she's the daughter of Peter. Not Ira Lee. Anybody remember Ira Lee? No? Me either.

[Beks]

Chapter 79 - Sun Blazes, Adoring Gazes



Freya is exhausted from becoming a big girl, so she goes right to sleep in her new bunny pajamas. That's right, she's a ghost bunny. You're welcome.



Later that same day...guess what, it's also Heather's birthday! Once Heather is a young adult, we'll finally be ready to move to the next town. I can't wait to get out of the desert, y'all. (Like, I love you, Lucky Palms, but please stop trying to burn my Sims alive? Please?)





Thank goodness, no fire. *wipes brow*



Heather becomes a stunning young adult (seriously, wow) and becomes Dramatic. Now that's my kinda trait. She's also an Absent-Minded Loner and Vegetarian with a Good Sense of Humor. And that combination of dramatic and funny...I dunno, it kind of screams "magician" to me. So that's her new Lifetime Wish: to be a Master Magician. (I've never played a magician, so I'm super excited.)



Only one more thing needs doing--Heather needs to go and get her man. She does so in suitable dramatic fashion.



She arrives at the gigantic Shaw house and finds her boyfriend in a rather, um, irritable mood. Maybe it's because he's Insane or something, but Trevor does not accept any of Heather's flirts. I was going to have her propose right here, but when I get the notification that Trevor has to leave for work soon, I must take decisive action.



"And with this kiss...I officially ADD YOU TO OUR HOUSEHOLD BY FORCE!"

Yeah, I use cheats to get Trevor in the family. Sorry not sorry. Anyway, now we can make this a PROPER proposal.



Heather takes Trevor up to the bistro on the side of the mountain or whatever. You know, the same place Archie and Angela got engaged a couple days ago? I kind of forgot that I had a different place in mind. Ah well. It's hard to beat that view.



I was starting to worry about Trevor, wondering if he'd changed his mind about Heather. Once again, he has the most enthusiastic "yes" the world ever did see, and I feel stupid for worrying in the first place.



He and Heather change into their formalwear and get married right there on that sun-baked patio.





Congratulations, Heather and Trevor Loveland!



Yeah, I shouldn't have worried about these two. They're about the most in-love couple I've ever seen.



I have too many pictures of Trevor gazing lovingly at Heather.



With that done, it's time to rejoin the rest of the family and get going!



But first, ANOTHER picture of Trevor gazing lovingly at Heather. He's cute, okay?



Trevor gets a makeover after this, except no other hair seems to suit him so he mostly just gets facial hair and a slightly better wardrobe. Trevor's traits are Loner, Brave, Insane, Couch Potato, and Nurturing, and his favorite things are Songwriter music, PB&J, and the color lime. His Lifetime Wish is Alchemy Artisan.



And with that, we've got a very full household once again (we're at the limit, including the pets) and a packed moving truck. It's time to say goodbye to Lucky Palms and its beautiful sunsets.



But first, Archie, as the new heir, gets to check the mailbox to find out where the Lovelands are headed next.



See you later, Lucky Palms.

[Trip]

Playable ghosts should show up in the flesh using MasterController's Stylist function. We're all aching to see Freya!

[hazelnut]

I remember Ira Lee!  (Which somehow sounds quite a lot like 'I am Spartacus!')  After cloning him in my current game, I have a bit of a soft spot for Ira.

The little ghost bunny is adorable .

So was 'later' another hint?
Moonlight Falls?  Starlight Shores?  Midnight Hollow?  Basically, I have no idea .

[deedee_828]

Unfortunately, the game mechanics have everyone constantly annoyed by ghosts, whatever age, whether playable or not.

It was definitely a big part of the reason that I chose not to make Kimberly my heir back in Midnight Hollow, as her partner was Antony Salas, an active ghost who was born in game to Jay and Tatiana Salas.

The other reason was that traveling removes ghostliness from playable ghosts, and in a Town Jump game I didn't want to constantly have to make them ghosts again.
It's easy enough to do with Nraas mods, but not something I wanted to do on a regular basis, as the game has enough glitches without doing something to cause more.

The idea of playable ghosts is great, but having to deal with the side affects during actual game play and traveling, not so much fun.

But I did want to warn you since ghostly Freya joined the family, in case you didn't know about the travel bug with ghosts.

I didn't know about that travel bug. When you say "traveling removes ghostliness", do you mean they just become regular humans? That's wild. I don't travel very often (and if I do it this generation, I'll probably just take Archie so he can level up photography), so it shouldn't be an issue.

Yay!  Ghostboo!  Although probably not a ghost fairy, judging by the lack of sparkles.  This is certainly turning into a varied family .

I wonder whether that's changed on a patch or whether it's just starting a new game file?  My Life States family travelled a lot and none of them lost the ghost overlay.

Freya is indeed just a ghost and not a ghost fairy. I guess that was too much to hope for. But she was still a fun surprise! (Well, not a surprise, I guess, since I planned it.)

Yes, when I had Kimberly and Antony Salas travel to France in a test game, Antony lost his ghostly look.
I added this link to show his pics.
https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=28396.msg504083#msg504083

And I use NRaas Traveler to make each of my towns the current home town, so it would have kept happening as long as I had an active ghost in my family.


I'm not sure about a patch changing it. I'm fully patched as I play via Origin.
But with my research into ghost glitchiness, that's one of the things that could happen that happened in my test game.
Other traveling issues with ghosts were that they could keep their ghostliness but lose their tombstone from their inventory, preventing them from returning to the netherworld.

But when I had Antony move in to my active household, he didn't have a tombstone, until I removed and added his ghost occult state via Nraas, making him a true ghost.
And able to father ghost nooboos.

Amaranthin: As for Freya only being ghostly and not a fairy, do you have it set up in NRaas to allow for multiple occult states?
If yes, how high is the percentage for multiple life states?

[Trip]

@deedee_828 other life states can combine with the ghost state without mods and are the only life state that will barring major glitches. (ah the joys of moderating the Life States Dynasty rules, this happens all the time!) I've definitely traveled with playable ghosts without any life state changes (without mods for the record) but I wonder if it's prone to corruption and that Twallan made a difficult choice in the effort to not break people's games when they traveled with ghosts.

[deedee_828]

Thanks Trip! I never knew that ghosts are the only occult state that could have more than one without mods. I guess that makes sense though as if you're a fairy, or any other life state when you meet Grim, you'd then be a ghost as well. But I didn't realize that it could happen to ghost babies without a mod, to be both, as I've not played Sims 3 without mods for a very long time.

I've never attempted a Life States Dynasty, so it's never come up for me before now.

Though I have been trying to include them in my TJ game wherever I could, without changing the genetics of any of the original residents, but that severely limits the towns you can find them in.

I'm not sure if losing the ghost occult state is part of using NRaas mods or not, as I'd read that it was a possibility when you traveled with them, and not necessarily related to mods.
here's the link to my NRaas post that discussed ghostly issues:

https://www.nraas.net/community/post67519?hilit=traveling%20with%20ghosts#p67513