Friday 19 May 2006

Pic of the day: OK, here's the plan: Each of us marries the meanest, nastiest Sim of the opposite sex, and then we make sure they don't run around kicking over people's trash cans and throw water balloons!

Return of the Sims

The Oblivion fad is still gradually fading, giving room for City of Heroes first and now gradually to The Sims 2 again. I resume playing the coral twins, the immortal Avatars of Mercy, whose quest is to marry the mean and spiteful Sims and help them gain happiness and live a good life so they can die of old age with good karma and satisfied with their life.

Normally in most neighborhoods one of the first things I aim for is a cowplant to eat the mean Sims: Komei Tellerman, Amin Sims, both of the Ivy Copurs, Benjamin Long, Sophie Miguel. Getting rid of them makes the neighborhood a better place for everyone. They play pranks on people, pick fights and rack up enemies. They kick over your trash can when you are not looking, so the trash spills out and stinks, attracting roaches to your lawn and making you sick. My gut reaction is the same as with such people in real life, except in the game I can act on it and feed them to the cowplant, which will recycle them into healthy milk for my good Sims.

After reading the musings of a Buddhist on the Sims2 LiveJournal community, I decided to try a different approach. Much of what we LJ'ers do with our Sims are "challenges". The most common by far is the "Legacy Challenge" in which you play your Sims for 10 generations without cheating. My own invention is the "megafamily" in which no one ever moves out, and the spouses move in, increasing the family size over time as the whole clan lives on the same property. Well, I guess this is a kind of challenge too: Eliminate all mean and spiteful people from the gene pool through love.

It hasn't quite turned out as I planned, though. Chron Atarna (the male, named after Chronos, Greek for time) has married the adult Ivy Copur, but they both wanted a child so I let them. The result is a son, Tiber, who is now growing up in the house. He inherited his mother's mean streak, sadly, but his father has encouraged him to be nice so early and for so long that it has actually happened. He is probably still genetically evil, though, so should not be allowed to breed. (Although I suppose he could do the same for his own kids if needed.)

And Komei Tellerman, my public enemy number one, did indeed fall in love with Gae Atarna and moved in. But somehow their progress stalled and they never got along to marry and consumate their love. I guess he had an OK life, but at some point he had met a downtownie, Camryn, and accidentally went with her on a date. (He, or rather I, thought she said an outing of friends, but when he came downtown there was only her.) He fell madly in love and the two of them got engaged right there. Shortly afterwards he moved downtown and the two of them married. They are now about to have a child at the same time as Komei is close to growing old. I guess it's OK this way too. I hope they get a nice child though, not a mean one.

Luckily the Sims live fairly long as elders, at least if they enter old age with a high aspiration level. (Having fulfilled many wishes recently.) It is therefore unlikely that Komei will kick the bucket before their child is close to college age.

What to do with Camryn and their child when Komei has passed away? They are not originally part of the project, and I don't really want to play a whole town of unrelated Sims. Perhaps I will use the TestingCheats and make them townies again. Or perhaps I'll use the neighborhood of Dreamy Lake for some other project after the bullies are all dead from old age. Who knows. Most likely this fad, like most others, will fade before I get that far. If not, you will likely hear about it again.