Soooo yeah. I have this annoying habit of totally making my mind up about something, and then changing it the next day. It happens. I played around in the Megahood a little, but got rather overwhelmed by all those families. It's lovely to play, and really gives you a sense of community and interconnection between sims, but boy does it take ages to get through a single round!

Then I remembered I had a file laying around of the Pleasantview-Strangetown merged hood that <lj user="meetme2theriver"> made for me (thanks again for that!). It hadn't been played, aside from doing a make-over for all the sims in it. (You can see the make-overs at the 'hood party here.) I put it in my game, started playing, and I'm totally loving it.

It's entirely possible that I'll switch back to the Megahood at some point. Who knows? For now though, I hope you enjoy this update of Strangely Pleasant as much as I did playing it :)



The Oldies

I moved Herb and Coral into one of the small houses of the more 'urban' part of Pleasantview. In the Megahood this is a bit of a slum area, but in Strangely Pleasant it's actually fairly, well, pleasant, even though the houses are pretty tiny.



Coral's OTH (One True Hobby) is Nature, and she started off the week by planting the seeds for a new garden. Her LTW is having 3 grandchildren, which would mean Daniel and Mary-Sue having another baby. I really want her to be happy, but those two are getting on a bit in years, and I'm not sure how the whole marriage thing is going to pan out...



Herb's a Romance/Popularity sim, with the LTW of having 10 best friends. He doesn't have a lot of time left to achieve this, so he's socialising like mad. Goopy must be over the moon that an actual playable sim is paying attention to him for once.



Herb, being the old romantic he is, wanted to go on a date, so he took out Coral for a stroll in the park. Ahw, old folks in love :)



Coral in particular was rather worried about the family situation of her daughter, and invited over the twins to see if things could be patched up.

Lilith: "Mutter grumble always hugs Angela first grumble pffsh."



Herb pitched in, trying to get the twins to talk to eachother instead of trying to tear off eachother's scalps. A lot of influence was spent, and for the first time in years, Lilith and Angela actually had a civilised conversation. We'll have to see how long it lasts though, of course.

Lilith: "Fine, but only because I'd do virtually anything for a slice of grandma's berry pie."



With Coral's green thumb working its magic, the garden is coming along nicely.


The Pleasants

I started off by remodelling all the existing houses when I played a family, so the updates will include pictures of what the lot currently looks like. The Pleasant house is a very nice lot. It suffers less from the standard EAxian convoluted layout than others do, but the upstairs is frankly a bit of a mess. I've redone the entire upstairs to create a lot more space, and gave the downstairs a makeover as well. I tried to keep the outside look of the house more or less the same.







The large attic-area in the upstairs stays empty for now, until I've figured out what to do with it. Maybe I'll set up a little poker area, or it'll be converted into a bedroom if grandma Coral gets her wish for a third grandchild.



A new bedroom calls for it getting baptised, obviously. I'm playing along with the scenarios that EAxis set up. I quite like Kaylynn's expression here, like she knows she'd be wiser not to go through with this.



Mary-Sue failed her chancecard, came home RIGHT after Daniel and the maid finished up, and proceeded to dive into bed with Daniel herself. I'm pretty sure this is not how it's supposed to go...



Jennifer dropped by for a chat with Daniel, and to keep Kaylynn busy in the hall while Daniel and Mary-Sue were at it, apparently. I'm pretty amazed at how, without any outside control by me, this household manages to completely get away with various acts of foul play. In the Megahood Mary-Sue practically kicked out Daniel as soon as the maid smiled at him, for crying out loud.

Kaylynn: "I'm telling you, it's huge! Elephants would be put to shame!"
Jennifer: " I do NOT need to know this about my brother!"



The bedroom remains the place to be, as Angela and Lilith invade it shortly after. Their time together with their grandparents seems to have paid off, as they quite happily chat away. Daniel is most pleased!

Lilith's relationship with Angela might have been somewhat repaired, but she still can't stand her parents, and ran away shortly after this scene. Daniel rang the police to try and find her, but so far, she hasn't come back. Lilith's one of my favourite sims, and I'm pretty heartbroken that's she's missing :(



On a happier note, Dustin and Angela had their first kiss.

Angela: "Are you sure this is how it's supposed to work?"
Dustin: "As long as I don't get fatally stabbed by your nose, I'm calling this a succes."



Daniel really dislikes Dustin, and constantly picks fights with him. It makes it rather hard for Angela and Dustin to date.

Daniel: "You're a no-good, over-hormonal, deadbeat, underachieving waste of space!"
Dustin: "Hey! I'll let you know I've got a job and everything!"
Daniel: "Oh yes? Doing what exactly?"
Dustin: "Uhm..."



Daniel and Mary-Sue are all over eachother in this alternate reality that is Strangely Pleasant. They constantly get up to sickeningly cute stuff like this without any directions on my behalf. Maybe that third grandchild isn't such a horrible idea after all?


The Calientes



Nina and Dina moved into a small house close to the Oldies. They both like to jump rope in the garden, to the delight of the local men.



Nina's LTW is to Woohoo with 10 different sims, which is my least favourite LTW (right after the pet and business related ones). She invited over Don to make a start. I've never actually completed this LTW, so it'll be interesting to see if I can pull it off.



Don is totally up for it, but they seem to run into a bit of a snag... (How totally cute together are Don and Nina though?)



Yes, I can see how random total strangers in your hottub would put a domper on the mood. What are you even doing here, Amin Sims? And why AREN'T YOU WEARING ANY SWIMMING TRUNKS? 



Don and Nina aren't sims to let some public indecency get them off track though...



... and soon number one's in the bag, so to speak.



Meanwhile, Dina's hard at work on her career. She wants to earn 100.000 $, and has chosen the Show Business to help her make it. 



Time is money, and Dina certainly doesn't have the time to go around looking for sims to date. An appointment with the local matchmaker is much more efficient.



Her blind date turns out to be Ajay Loner, and they hit it off immediately. I'd never really thought of these two as a potential couple, but wouldn't they make some pretty, pretty babies?



Besides, they are cuteness itself together.



D'aaahhwww :) I'm not making any commitments for these two just yet, but it's looking good.



Nina, on the other hand, is busy trying to find eligible males. Herb lives practically next door, so he's a logical next victim.



That's number two!



She's also working on wooing Daniel Pleasant...



... and putting the moves on quintessential happily married John Burb. So far though, I'm proud to report, he's turned down all of her avances. Good on you, John!


The Brokes

Last ones up for this update are the Broke family. Their trailer got a different layout and an update in decor, and the swimming pool in the backyard got filled up. No need to remind them of the past, plus they can use the simoleons.  It looks fairly decent now, if still rather pink.





Brandi's days are filled trying to teach little Beau as much as she can.

Brandi: "And the little baby-chair that mommy can't afford to buy is a high chair. Allright sweetie? High chair!"

Way to depress your son before he can even walk, Brandi...



Lecturing Dustin takes up quite a bit of her time as well. At least she's managed to convince him that a life of crime doesn't pay. Or so she thinks. Actually, Dustin's failing grades got him fired. I didn't know criminals were that bothered about education?



Dustin's happiest when Angela is around. She takes his mind off the troubles of his family life.



Beau is a very enterprising toddler, and he grows up fast.



Uhm, very fast. I completely missed throwing him a birthday party. Poor kid :(



Maybe a bit too fast...

Beau: "Now that I'm grown up and eligible for education, I'm really looking forward to trigonometry!"
Brandi: "I don't think they'll start you out on advanced mathematics, sweetie."



Brandi has run into Darren Dreamer a couple of times outside her house, and has finally plucked up the courage to invite him in. They get along very well.



One of the next times she invited him over, he brought Dirk along, and since then Dirk and Dustin have been pretty much inseperable.



In the best tradition of sims everywhere, Brandi gave birth on the sidewalk. She just got home from her job in the Culinary career, seeing as she has to get money from somewhere now Dustin has been fired from his job. You can just about see Beau being shocked at the proceedings in the lower left corner.



The little tot's a girl, and gets named Billie. She's got her mom's black hair, and her dad's dark blue eyes.



Brandi's decided that her kids need a dad, and puts the moves on the unsuspecting Darren. This was all ACR's work, I don't really intervene in my sim's relationships aside from setting them up with the gypsy matchmaker occasionally. Brandi and Darren have two bolts and get along like a house on fire.



Point in case.



Beau is very neat and constantly picks up after everyone else, which is a blessing in this household. If it wasn't for him, I'd have had my first death by flies by now, I think.



Dustin giving his little sister a bath. Note Darren in the background, he's more in the house than out.



Birthday time! I did manage to round everyone up and snag them for some cake this time around.



Cute! Her nose looks like it'll be pretty interesting. I think she's 80% Brandi, 20% Skip.



Dustin reading his sister a story. Luckily she's bolted on firmly by an arm through the butt. Ouch.



Brandi has a pretty decent relationship with General Grunt, so she invited over the entire household for dinner. Things started off pretty awkward, with Tank and Dustin talking tentatively.



Buck and Beau seemed to get along just fine, however. They're quite alike in many respects I think. Both blonde, neat, rather serious and pernickety. Not to mention the whole single-parent thing.



Things loosened up soon enough, and Buck even got to spend some quality time with his dad. I was really happy when they started to hang out, the General has never really had much time for Buck and I've always felt rather sorry for him.



Identical grumpfaces on Tank and Beau there...



Ripp seemed most at ease playing with Billie, instead of hanging out with Dustin as I'd hoped. They're both sort of badboy-ish, so I thought they'd get along well, but they mostly ignored eachother. By the end of the evening, Billie and Ripp were already friends though. Huh.



Closing off with a totally adorable pic of Beau :)

So far for the first update of Strangely Pleasant. Next up: the Goths, Lotharios, Dreamers and Burbs!