There you are! I was getting a little worried about you, but I figured, Life. Sorry it's been such a bad summer.

It's a little late to comment much but I gotta say: Daytona, you hypocrite! I kind of want Sandy to catch her and have something to hold over her mother-in-law's head for once.

Two aspiration failures? Oh, dear! Samantha has a tough row, but I've never quite had her in failure. 'Course I never saddled her with the Critturs, either.

Too bad Goldie's first brilliant idea didn't quite work out - but of course Mary took a puppy! I expect the Lands would take one, too. (It is one of my regrets that I couldn't ship them with several dogs under their porch.) Or maybe - ooh - I bet Rocky'd like one! Peter should push one on Daytona, while he's giving her his "input."

Holey cheese, Jim and Tammy Faye look a lot alike! I wouldn't worry. They'll grow into it; and their features don't stand out that much in Widespot.

Thanks, when it rains it pours. I am definitely glad to be getting some semblance of balance back.

Peter and Daytona are just so random but it's what they wanted. He's not only keeping the boss happy with his work, though, he's developed a genuine pink-hearted crush. He's going to have a tough choice to make come spring, Val offered him a job but Daytona won't let him go graciously. She's put too much into grooming him and, unless Hamilton got demoted, she'd be back at square one. (But I don't think Daytona has it in her to outright sabotage her son.)

I can't recall if Sam's is the first aspiration failure for the hood, I think so. Even before that she definitely had the beleaguered housewife thing down pat but it was Dora and then Peter and David who really kept that household running. She didn't actually do much of anything but the twins' toddlerification did soon put her through her paces.

I love how similar they look, was less thrilled by the near identical personalities but it was fun to see how different they were already despite that.

I expect Peter justifies it to himself in a number of little ways - keeps him from making demands on Samantha when she's stressed, keeps the boss happy with him - and he'd laugh if you pointed out she was exploiting him, but - she is anyway. (In a way that Sandy wasn't exploiting Rhett - it really was almost six of one, half dozen of the other with them, though as the older one she still gets a little more blame.) I'm surprised Daytona even wants him, since she's in love with Val, but then the woman's got control issues and isn't much in the habit of questioning her own behavior. The number of ways this could turn real ugly, real fast, is sizable, but we'll see. I wonder how Hamilton or Virgie would react to finding out? Virginia's young enough to process and learn (and it might make her a little more inclined to try to understand her mother), but Hamilton? Could he even allow himself to be disillusioned with his mother? Or would he automatically default to "right, if Mama says so?"

David needs to listen to Val, not Goldie, about the bat! It's not so much that Goldie is different, as it is that Valentine's living with the results of Candy and Rhett's upbringing every day, and he's trying to learn from it and do better by Goldie. I don't suppose for one moment he puts any of the blame for his older kids' poor decision-making skills on Angel, even though she probably did more of the raising than he did (assuming he spent a lot of each season on the road), much less on them. Val's got his faults, but hiding from blame isn't one of them.

Plus he's got all those daughter-protection instincts jangling for Candy's sake, and can't deploy them on Candy's behalf, so Goldie gets stuck with more than her share. Maybe when the granddaughters get old enough to be people he'll spread some of that around before he finds out that too much strictness is just as bad. (I think he's doing a pretty good job, though. Parents who are never embarrassing aren't worth much to a teen.)

It would shock Peter, and Hamilton, too, if they could see inside their hero's head and get a look at the degree of failure he chalks up to his own account. Shame men don't talk about things like that. They might stop making the same mistakes as each other over and over.

That house needs some toddler skilling toys, though I don't know where you'd put them. They reduce the chaos a lot, because the toddler will get stuck on a favorite toy and start rolling skill wants. The activity table could get Tommy and Sharla around it bonding without knowing it, too. Too bad the thing's such a space hog! I tend to build big open spaces (as you may have noticed) and I'm still constantly puzzled where to put it that won't have one side blocked.

Umber Ella? :rolleyes: ('Cause I have so much room to talk...) I hope the brown ones do wind up with Danny's coloring so the name still works, but baby animal coloring seems to be random and have no connection to the grown coat color. What did Mary name hers? Super, that's a good name for a dog...

I haven't played any of Round 3 yet so I don't know how any fallout would play with the Beeches (though I have ideas for Day and Val extending beyond 3 into 4) but I have a feeling they would absorb it, Hamilton and Virginia, since Daytona's not the one breaking any vows. But Rocky would flip out. He'll still be a child but the divorce was hard on him and through Delta Sharla's become one of his friends.

I don't think Daytona even reciprocates Peter's crush, it's an ACR hookup, but among other ways she's using him, he also buffers her from feeling like a fool in love with a man who can't commit exclusively to her. She's not about to let Val have all the power, carrying on with any woman he wants while she waits around just because it's "his nature"! But there is still the matter of the awkwardness of her choice, especially since the inception of the kaffee-klatsch ;-)

One thing Goldie can never doubt is that she is loved, of course that goes for all the Hart kids, but she might start to resent not feeling trusted, especially when she's not inclined to do half the stuff Candy and Rhett did and got away with doing.

Now I can't shake the image conjured up of Val as motivational speaker/celeb expert touring the lecture circuit promoting his book about love and marriage and the media (not to be confused with alterna-Lana's exposé "Married to the Mann") and then hosting workshops and retreats for men only where he gives advice on love, sex, and relationships, all trading on his reputation to impart some real wisdom. Of course that wouldn't be this iteration of Val but if I ever attach subhood Widespot to one of my others I might come back to that. As for this Val, it'd be interesting to see if he could bring himself to confide in either Hamilton or Peter, if only on the fatherhood "tip".

I usually regulate skill toys because my toddlers tend to be toddlers for longer than standard and I don't like them skilling up too much because they do obsess over those things. But with the shorter rotations and the motivation-based skill limits that shouldn't be a problem here. I let Una have hers because it made sense but I'll have to remember to scatter them around more liberally.

The other puppies still only have placeholder names so Super sounds just fine to me. That will have been Junior's doing.

Virginia blames the whole Hart family for her mom's fall, though, so it's going to take some special pleading to make Grandma come off innocent. But hey, political family - I'm sure she knows how to do special pleading. I certainly don't blame Daytona for dating around on Val, or for going for a younger man - but younger married man who works for her? At some level, she has to know that's not right...

If you can imagine Valentine sitting still long enough to write a book, it's more than I can do! Now, if a nice young lady wanted to follow him around with a tape recorder and get an "as told to," that'd be another thing, entirely! I doubt he'd fancy any "males only" environments, either; which sounds silly, given his profession, but there were plenty of women in the stands and I'm sure he was always in favor of letting female journalists into the locker room and training camp. If he did hold seminars, there'd probably be a "practical" portion involving leaving the venue.

It's pretty easy to think of situations in which he might feel entitled, or obliged, to drop a word to Hamilton or Peter, either one, if he sees them making a mistake similar to one he feels he's made. He's in a peculiar position vis-a-vis Hamilton, dating his mother, being hero-worshiped by him at the same time he's in that weird quasi-family situation with his ex-wife; so it could easily get uncomfortable - but I doubt either of them would let discomfort get in the way, if Valentine needed to tell him something about his kid. It's easier to see him warning Ottomas than advising him; but if Peter starts picking up women at the Dugout, Val could easily feel it to be part of his duty to Goldie to say something to him about setting the bad example for his kids, and how easy it is for things to get out of hand. Especially if Peter comes to work for him

I was pleased with Peter turning Peach down - and I have to wonder, is she amusing herself, or is she under orders? Peter represents a real, exploitable weak point for Daytona, just the kind of thing a Mann like him would hate to waste.

I can hear Valentine protesting to Goldie: "It's him I don't trust, not you!" and believing it - not even realizing that this means he doesn't trust Goldie's judgement. Nor will Goldie realize that not trusting their kids' judgement is part of a parent's job. That's one of those things that almost no one recognizes till they get kids of their own.

Oh, I really love the pose box (I presume that's what it is?) that let Sharla hold the baby! I understand why kids are so limited in dealing with babies, but I wish it weren't so. Kids, especially in big families, can get pretty adept at baby care at a pretty young age. They ought to have more interactions than they do. David is such an excellent big brother!

I can't imagine this Val doing any of that, he's not about to open that can of worms, he and his family are off limits to those media vultures and the nosy public, although I could see a cash-strapped (or attention-starved, if the Rich widow thing pans out) Candy doing a tell-all one day.

Virginia's response to her mom is deeply personal, of course: she's her mother, how dare she be flawed! But there is also the fact that Grandma was the undisputed authority in their house that makes Virgie less likely to react outwardly if she learned about Peter. If she mouthed off a bit, it would almost certainly be while walking away, no direct confrontation after that first surprised "how could you?", and she would internalise most of what she felt while trying to figure out what it means to be a Beech woman or a woman period and where she, and her attraction to David, fits in.

But Daytona is pretty discreet so that's only a slim possibility. More likely is that Virgie will find out about Dixie and Rhett, probably from Dixie herself in a moment of absent-mindedness and she'll have to figure out just how angry to be and with whom.

In the fuzzy timeline Peach's presence corresponds to Candy's honeymoon/casino imprisonment so Peter wouldn't be able find Peach at The Dugout anymore even if that were expressly who he went looking for rather than just hoping to bump into again. She was definitely out to have a little fun in this podunk town while she was there and probably drum up some business as the only woman in a bar with Val and Peter (and I think Rhett may have been on lot in the background) and a bunch of lonely truckers. But keeping her eyes and ears peeled is part of her business and she certainly likes to stay on the right side of Mr. Rich.

For Val that whole "what you do is what you do" deal has worn thin after Candy and Rhett; it still holds true, he just wants Goldie to do something else. Find some dreams and pursue them and please no babymaking. (College is out of the question but she's got her camera and her easels.) That's why he's probably going to cave and let Rhett set up a keyboard at The Dugout...the boy does have some talent.

Alas, that posebox is for adults so it took some finagling to get Sharla and Graham together. Although it was a lot easier than getting Una to sit up and play, which in this update you can only barely glimpse through the doorway when Goldie and David came by. The filenames aren't ringing any bells and they don't all come with useful preview pics so I'd have to check in game to see which it was.

Yeah, that'd have to be a very different iteration of Val, at a very different time of his life...I figure, in my hood, after his death Candy (who is already writing romance novels anyway) will be writing a memoir, and if Peter befriends Mary he'll be able to talk her into cooperating on an authorized biography - but without the man himself, there won't be much to work with. Unless Angel was a diarist or letterwriter, and didn't specify that they all be burned on her death, there won't be anything in the way of a paper trail to his life, and even such as exists won't offer anything of his interior life. He kept that to himself, and presumably for Angel.

And I don't think he feels that he has much advice to give anybody else, though he does try with Rhett (with limited success), and a specific warning when he sees someone about to make some specific mistake he's already made himself is always a possibility. Otherwise - naw, he'll mind his own business. Too many messes of his own to clean up to worry about anybody else's.

Men ought to kaffeeklatsch more. As a gender they're appallingly inarticulate; and yet they do so much talking...

Fortunately, Goldie is pretty likely to do something different; if only because Popularity sims are the least ardent of all the aspirations, even when triple-bolting. They're putty in the hands of a Romance or Pleasure sim who goes to work on them, but I've always found that even the most loving Popularity couples need a little nudge to get the fire going. (Though you can't tell that by Sandy...) Spring is coming, though, and that's a high risk season for anybody. And no one (except Goldie) can blame Val for being a shade paranoid on the subject, given past history.

I'm not sure Dixie would even see a reason to keep banging Rhett a secret from Virginia. Virginia hates her mom now, right? So she ought not to mind when what goes around, comes around, and Rhett cheats on Sandy. The situation of having an unfaithful parent is so foreign to the Land status quo, she can't do much but take Virginia's word for her own reactions - and I don't think even Virginia would understand why she might mind, until she found out and learned that she did.

It'll be interesting to see how Dixie negotiates the changes in all her relationships that come about with her change of status. Will she tell Mary about Rhett, and what would Mary (in light of her own experience) say in response, if she did? Dixie tops the list of people Mary is most likely to feel compelled to be honest to - but can you imagine that girl keeping a secret without blurting it out the first time she got het up? (Almost the last thing that happened in development was Dixie and Mary, up before anyone else, talking about babies, and Dixie took it completely in stride. I've always found Dixie to be good at the unconditional love stuff, too.)

The mysterious Peach cries out for a larger role, but a lot depends on how she interacts with people and the development of the main storyline. If you ever need a catalyst for a third-act turn, I bet she can do it for you. She doesn't seem to be afraid of Rich, and he doesn't seem to distrust her, which may indicate a history with him that's unique to her and would be interesting to uncover over time. I wonder if there's a kind of information she could turn up on her own, and deliberately withhold - if she felt she could do so safely? To what degree is she loyal, and to what degree is she merely self-interested? And does ambition even enter into it?

I've never used a posebox, and don't plan to, so don't strain yourself looking for it on my account. It's a shame it's so hard to use this way, though, because it came out well, and is entirely appropriate in big families, and even in small ones in which the parents are sufficiently overwhelmed or neglectful. The programmers were a too conservative about the amount of interactions children could have with babies, and only gave us enough to make us want a lot more. Maybe the thing could be edited for children?

Ah, Peter probably already knows more about the straight facts of Val's early life and career than Mary and fans aren't likely to flock to read about his life in retirement as a remarried and faithful husband and father. If Peter can't get Val to cooperate (and he doesn't seem properly equipped to do so) then Candy's memoir is sure to be the more scintillating read. Which is still so funny to me because if I ever caught my Candy with a book in her hand I'd be laughing all over the place :-)

Yes, men can be such a gossipy lot (although "somehow" it's never called that when they do it) but they could stand to talk more. To each other. About real stuff.

I think Val can strike the right balance with Goldie and in any case the overprotective Pop thing is less off-putting to her than the cynical sister. As you say, spring is a-coming, she's still a Hart, and he's a boy! Candy's just being realistic. And David is rather tactile, at that. Considering he's already been kissed by Virginia in just such a casual, chillin' with his friends, kind of encounter, Candy's advice wasn't completely off the mark. Her delivery is another matter. David had shrugged the whole thing off and his reasons for keeping it secret aren't devious but just having that secret with Virgie puts Goldie at a disadvantage, especially because she still would like nothing better than becoming friends with Virginia. Miss Virgie certainly had a lot of nerve picking at her on the Dixie front of all things anyway but hypocrisy seems to be a staple of the Beech family diet. Daytona does plan for Hamilton to replace her but he's really only expected to be like the regent until Virgie can take the rei(g)n. She's shaping up to be more like her mom than she'll acknowledge and more like her grandma than will be good for Scot's peace of mind.

Thus far Dixie has really only physically transitioned into adulthood. Jumping underneath her best friend's kinda sorta stepdad as her first official declaration of herself as autonomous woman says a lot about where her head is, or isn't, but I do have plans for Dixie. And Rhett was still a better choice than trying to seduce Virgie's actual dad, which had filtered into her teenage fantasies once or twice. Virginia can work through conflicted feelings about her mom and her bff sharing a man but losing her dad as well down that murky path of "wtf are you thinking with!" is not something she'd soon forgive.

Peach will definitely be returning in some capacity. If he decides against bringing her into their household as Candy's monitor/maid or the baby's nanny then Rich will not want her in Widespot but I suspect Peach may have ideas of her own about that.

I'm a cc-holic but I also seem to tinker more than I realised to get the game looking the way I want, as you'll see in the next update (realistically it won't be done before mid-week), but I've never fiddled with the inner workings of poseboxes beyond giving them more useful in-game descriptions than pose 1 or 2, way back before there were a zillion. This one was already child-enabled since it was clickable for Sharla, most aren't, but I'd jump for joy if there were actually more baby/toddler/child interactions in the code for some clever creator to restore.

What my Peter really wants, of course, is personal interviews, which isn't happening...but I expect Val spent a lot of his career sidestepping the press when they tried to butt in on his personal life, so apart from tabloid gossip and stuff in public sources nobody knows anything real about his childhood in the trailer park or how he and Angel juggled their marriage or even the whole truth about the bad leg. But by now all of that is stories he's perfectly willing to tell his family. He's constantly telling dirty jokes, and I read that as heyday stories, on himself and on Angel. So Peter might be able to get some good stuff, especially if he writes it for the school market, at secondhand after Valentine's dead, when it doesn't matter anymore and his loved ones want to talk about him.

But no, the best he could do wouldn't compare to Candy's memoir! If you ever let her have a TV, you may find her getting more literary - it's her OTH unless you've hacked the requirements, and she loves watching movies, which leads to reading and writing wants, too. But that doesn't mean she's into fine literature in the usual sense.

Virgie and Dixie have the disadvantage of a poor selection of role models. Dixie is too different from her mother and Mary for them to do her any good in that regard. Daytona and Sandy between them are drawing out all Virginia's faults rather than her virtues. Penny's probably the most emulatable woman in their field of view, since she's coming back from her early mistake and taking charge of her own life without ditching her responsibilities. Whether they will recognize her as a viable model, only time will tell. And Dixie's just so different from everyone else in town in her priorities and her energy levels, she may not have any choice but to figure it out on her own.

Dixie is a bit of an either-or character. People either love her, or can't figure out what to do with her. I eagerly look forward to seeing your plans.

Possibly I underestimate your Hamilton, but I suspect if Dixie had tried to vamp him, he wouldn't have recognized what she was doing, just because it'd be so far outside his frame of reference for her. I recall him feeling vaguely surprised to realize that Mary was all grown up, in an early chapter. And Mary's been grown up for awhile; nor has she ever been particularly associated with his children in his mind; so it ought to be even harder for him to wrap his head around with Dixie.

Goldie's role model, since she's so radically different from Candy, will naturally be Angel - or rather, the idealized mother she, Valentine, and Rhett create between them out of memory. Which has its own pitfalls. I've always felt that Candy was the one of the kids who knew Angel best as a human being. If the onset of Angel's illness coincided with Goldie reaching the age at which she should have been testing herself against her mother, that period of productive rebellion and questioning may have been cut short, or never happened at all, and left her stuck in identity limbo - that's certainly how it sounds when Goldie thinks about her own situation.

All of which makes Sandy moving in and Candy moving out an even more interesting monkey-wrench in the dynamic of that household...

Lana's name doesn't automatically pop up on the role model roster but she and Dixie will be living under the same roof. As a fellow fortune sim it'll be interesting to see just what Dixie makes of Lana in close quarters if she doesn't get too caught up in having to take Mary's side. For her part, Lana will be none too thrilled at having another Land around, nosing into her business just because she's there and has nothing better to do but notice things and possibly report back to her cop father since they're so close. And Homer is an ally Lana is keen to keep. There's no way she'd take Dixie in hand but she might make getting a job the new rule for living in her house. Something so little, with seemingly nothing to do with him, could contribute to the pressure on Junior who sees himself as finally the Mann of the house but is still not his own Mann.

There is also Dora whom, unfortunately, Dixie doesn't really know but who, despite the dreaded family aspiration, could conceivably be a good role model for her. She had to figure things out for herself as well, deciding what family really meant to her and it wasn't a house full of children (she went a bit wild for grandchildren but I think that was triggered after Petey and Sam started makin' 'em) or even a husband just to have a husband (the right feller never came along is all). I don't recall what her bio says at all but I've never played Dora as a widow; whether by chance or by choice, she was a single mother. And she and Petey made a great go of it, no regrets.

Because I wanted both Penny and Woody to be working from a background of having had to navigate more mainstream communities in their old town and prep school while looking different, Penny wasn't young enough to have quite imprinted on Beulah while she was insinuating herself over at the Lands' (and everywhere else in town) but her bond with Dora has helped her find new ways to look at her situation and plan for a future different from the one she was expecting.

But, oh, the things Penny could tell Dixie and warn her about Rhett, from a position of understanding the allure instead of talking down to her, if she only knew! Hmm...but the Mann round is a long way off so I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

I don't think Hamilton (as a character) would be susceptible to Dixie's charms, period. But if he did go there, forget about Virginia, what would that do to Rocky if he found out?! My horny little sims, on the other hand, are liable to do anything so while I like some of the randomness of ACR I will be making judicious use of the friend zone. Fathers and their kids' friends/lovers, um, no, not unless there's a really good character rationale.

No hacks but I tend to switch OTH at will without always remembering that I did so. Not in Widespot yet, I don't think, but Candy certainly did station herself in front of Junior's widescreen tv downstairs, which probably hadn't even been turned on before she got there. That and playing with the cat are what she did all day instead of childcare but during that round she wasn't in the house long enough (not at free range anyway) for it to have influenced her wants yet.

Being Goldie and being Goldie Hart are things she hasn't quite worked out yet, somewhat similar to Virginia. Dixie was in a slightly different position to prioritise her emphases because there's not quite the same kind of cachet attached to her family name (so far as she knows; outside of Widespot in the life her dad left behind, being a Land actually does or did hold considerable meaning). But, of course, if Dixie hadn't been determined not to like Goldie they might have bonded and helped each other through their parallel aspiration mismatches with their families. Goldie's also begging for a secondary aspiration: family. So likewise after her teenagery term her wants and goals will become better aligned with her expressed personality. Goldie hasn't decided how she feels about Sandy yet, she's the one who sees both of Rhett's families practically everyday and she's spending a lot more time around Virgie. Sandy will have to tread carefully, Goldie's smiles and kind words don't necessarily mean she's won her over but, who knows, maybe they'll bond over their shyness.

The Land name does mean something in Widespot, though - food and hooch, lots of kids, The Law - most of the things Dixie's trying to disassociate herself from. It is to her advantage, though, that everyone knows she's the odd one out. She hasn't even been cast as "her father's daughter" (which is odd, as she very much is - I think the only feature she got from her mother is hair color). Dixie is just Dixie. So she's not going to find herself crouched behind other people's expectations like Mary is, or pressured to live up to anything. In a way, she's the freest person in town, able to decide for herself what's important, and what to do about it.

The Mann round is a long way off but the Weiss round is upon us...already played, though, rats. But Penny could easily drop a dime to Dixie in the background of a community lot without you even trying, she's so open. I love your Penny. She's entirely different from mine (who has managed to learn all kinds of things while retaining a lot of naivte), very skilled at negotiating people without trying to control or manipulate them, hard-headed without losing her good heart. If making friends is a strategy, well - it's one that works for her, and for her friends. And I doubt she ever makes a mistake twice.

That House Mother thing Goldie does is pretty consistent! That could be a bone of contention or a bonding agent between her and Sandy, either one, depending on how Sandy decides to make a space for herself and how possessive Goldie is about "her" kitchen and her Pop's day-to-day care. Mary taking over periodically during the mourning period was one thing...! If you don't mind pop psych terminology, Goldie's Love Language is clearly Acts of Service, in a household of Physical Touchers. Whereas Sandy may have been trying to speak Acts of Service for awhile now, when it's not her true idiom. Oh, yeah, I'm real anxious to see how that's all going to shake out! So much is waiting to happen!

But first - the Weisses, and whether Dora can handle The Truth. Because I don't think she and Skye can progress much farther without letting her in on that.

(More life and stuff and on the run so this was half-written last week and I forgot exactly what I was saying so it detours but shouldn't be too obvious.)

I'm only vaguely aware of the love languages so it's not a reference I ever would've made but it seems rather apt and timely as a lens for the next update. But that's the thing about pop psych, it must always at least seem apt and generally applicable or it wouldn't be popular.

I still think of the Weiss round as one unit even though, after squandering precious spare simming time going back and forth between cutting quite a bit to fit it all in one post or rearranging so it'd maintain momentum and interest through two without showing too much or too little, I've finally settled on a structure that I like and that means another two-parter. The shorter rounds have done nothing to lighten the load, I appear to have overcompensated by squeezing A LOT into those 3 days and I had way more pics to sort this season than when I played the week long rotation. I know I said that somewhere before but it definitely got worse as I played on. I'm going to chalk that up to the developing story and my general play style, which was pic heavy long before I ever thought of sharing. Anyway, while I haven't pegged a love language for everybody, I think some will be especially apparent come Part Two.

Don't want to say much about what happens but I trust you'll still love Penny--how could you not! How could anyone not love Penny? Madness. Penny's not so open, though, that she'd willingly share and share alike when it comes to her child's father. I took a gander and no background pics of Dixie and Penny so far and since Dixie and Rhett are still just creeping around Penny would have to catch them at it and that would not go well with those love tags still lurking. I'd trust Penny to get over it in short order, though, and she wouldn't blame Dixie anyway, might even be almost grateful to her for helping her to stay clear on who Rhett really is if he'd go after Mary's little sister the second she was legal, precisely so she doesn't make that mistake twice. (I've got an outtake from that night that I think is hilarious; Penny might, too, looking on objectively.) And she might feel obliged, and perhaps self-interestedly motivated, to pass along some of Dora's birth control tips. If she ever wearies of her circumstantially-imposed abstinence she'll be trying them out herself ;-)

Oh, not loving Penny is not an option! Of course I will love Penny. I love all of them. And I'd really like to see that outtake. To be fair, Mary's little sister went after Rhett the second she was legal. He got with the program with an unseemly lack of hesitation - but one reason she went after him probably was that she knew he'd be easy to land. I doubt Dixie kids herself that this is a long-term gig.

I find most pop psych concepts work reasonably well if you keep your expectations reasonable. Which somehow the books about them never encourage you to do. They at least provide shorthand terms that make thinking about certain aspects of our lives a bit easier. You can decide that Sandy is a Physical Toucher in a household of people who prefer Verbal Affirmations - but she wasn't getting the Verbal Affirmations, either, was she? The problem in that house wasn't communication; it was hierarchy.

I have found that short rotations provide an intense experience, trying to accomplish a lot in a short span of time, and paying much closer attention to everything that goes on. But it's a level of attention that's appropriate to soap opera - which started out having to pack a whole bunch of Drama into 15-minute bursts between commercials. The close attention prompts you to take a lot of pictures, because there's so much going on, especially on community lots and home businesses, with uncontrollables coming and going and getting up to business in the background that is either too exploitable, enlightening, or hilarious to pass up. If you need to make a two-parter, I'm game to read another two-parter.

Wait, Penny's still got love tags for Rhett? After she turned him down I thought for sure she was over him. Wrong on that count again, I see. I wonder whether it's that those Hart men are so hard to get over, or that those Widespot women have such big tough tenacious hearts. Does Sandy still love Hamilton, too?

Yeah, Rhett relieving Dixie of that pesky virginity was definitely Dixie's idea, which must, of course, make it her fault, too. Can't blame him for that, c'mon! Although if Penny did find out she's not inclined to give him the benefit of any doubt these days.

ACR along with probably the romance mod make for some very interesting decision making. Apart from the hook-ups. Penny turning him down because she just wasn't feeling the love or in the mood is at least still straight Maxis behaviour but I've actually had a sim accept a proposal with no love or crush tags to speak of! She was acting unofficially in love so I was pleased but that still surprised me.

Have to check about Sandy. She was visibly pining for the first part of her round but by the end she was in rage mode and I don't recall what triggered the switch, or whether her fury burst the love bubble. --Okay, so Sandy's fury has worn away and she really hates Hamilton right now, -100/-100, no love for the ex-husband. But, at least, for the sake of the kids, they're not enemies, unlike Lana and Rich. Their divorce is a grudge she's not relinquishing any time soon, her fury meter is still half full. Right before her little sneaky turn in the next part when I was just watching and wondering 'why on earth did she go in there?', she raged about her broken marriage and then, of course, promptly acted out to soothe her ego. But no love left for Rich. It's looking like it really is those dang Hart men! They get under your skin even when, like Penny, you are fully fed up with scratching that itch.

Finally winding down to another stats & outtakes post so maybe I'll lead with Dixie/Rhett shenanigans.

Yay, this was such a nice surprise :) I loved the chaos of the Ottomi and David and Goldie are so sweet together, I hope he can be better than Candy expects!

:-D Glad you liked it! I love Goldie and David together, he doesn't have the best role models and, well, neither does she for the kind of romance she's looking for, but I'm rooting for them!

Adding the Crittur hell to the Ottomas chaos, thou art brave, simmer, very brave indeed :D

Ha ha! Eventually they did stop tearing up the place and terrorising guests, or almost stop. But David better hold fast to that love note from Goldie because if the mail lady is smart she won't be coming back around :-)

Oh yeah, that fireplace was purely deco during this round, they needed the space. Although...Widespot still hasn't had any fires and they could, well, I could do with getting a move on unlocking stuff. I do have one family left to play before round 3 because I want to introduce them in the winter. They might just need a working fireplace to, um, stave off the chill.

Cyd without Porthos, he must've been devastated! I have managed to retrain Sarah's and Danny's tastes to eat pet food in previous hoods but I never played scheduled rotations before so I had a lot more time to work on them. I didn't even attempt it here, maybe it'll be a project for the kids next round. There were a lot of sims to keep sane in that house and, clearly, I didn't quite manage it (although I have no idea what first sent Sam over the edge, Daytona was on lot but she was more or less behaving herself).

So you moved the Critturs in with the Ottomi! No wonder no skills were increased while you played this family, you must have had your hands full anyway. :D Great update. This was a really everyday family life kind of chapter and still so interesting. You really manage to make them all into real persons, exploring and using every little detail in their personalities the way you do, adding layer after layer. And Daytona wanted Peter’s input! :D I can?t be the only one who snorted out lout when reading that sentence.

I did indeed, like they weren't chaotic enough without them! Just keeping tabs on everyone, especially once the twins aged up, was challenge enough. Coming back to the story on this particular update after being in such a different head space took some finagling since the Ottomi weren't like the pure drama of the Mann Act or even the Weisses, with definite notes that needed to be hit, so I'm glad you liked how it turned out! Ah, Daytona and Peter...Well, I tend to laugh my way through writing most of these updates so I'm happy to pass along the chortle :-)