I love Strangetown, but I've never played it as much as Pleasantview. I've got a general idea of what the sims in here are all about (and I've got their bios to help me figure it out as well), but I did notice while playing that I'm much more still trying to figure out what to do with a lot of sims, while in Pleasantview sims are immediately 'in character' to me. If that makes any sense at all.

Probably not.

Anyways! Kicking off this round for Strangetown is the Specter household, where an unassuming repairperson is reporting for duty.




I didn't do any remodelling on this lot, aside from some different floors and wallpaper, so I didn't take any pictures of the house.



Olive: "I hope you don't mind working late. I'm afraid the plumbing is in a dreadful condition. But you're welcome to spend the night here, if that makes things easier for you..."
Repairperson: *recoils*



Oh come on, the plumbing can't be in such a bad state that it warrants tears? Right?



Oh, Olive.



Ophelia remains blissfully unaware of her aunt's (great-aunt's?) antics, and has taken up playing the violin to take off her mind from her worries. Plus, the terrible noise seems to scare off the ghosts.



There's quite the collection of them, isn't there? Family members, unsuspecting passers-by... I don't think I've seen them all yet, but Olive seems to simply lure in everyone that calls at the house, including the pizza delivery guy. She's taken to sleeping during the day, because at night she can't sleep for longer than half an hour without being woken up by an angry ghost.



She even managed to drown one of them. In a desert! He (or was it a she?) leaves around puddles when haunting the grounds, which takes the poor maid the better part of the day to mop up.



Olive spends most of the time working on her skills. Her LTW is to max out 5 of them, and she still has a way to go.



Ophelia is more than happy to get out as soon as she can, and leaves for college somewhere halfway during the week, sneaking out during the day when Olive was asleep. She must suspect something is going on in the house, but I suppose she'd rather leave and save her own skin than ask any questions or investigate. I can't really blame her for that one.



Unfortunately for the repairperson, that leaves her alone in the house with Olive.



Grim: "WE HAVE TO STOP MEETING LIKE THIS, OLIVE."

It's a widespread theory in the Sims community that Olive's in love with the Grim. She had his son, after all, and in order to keep seeing him, she kills off people.
Ophelia caught a lucky break because the authorities were aware that she was living with her aunt, and Olive's got enough sense of self-preservation that she knew it was a bad idea if Ophelia went missing.



I'm dithering a bit over what to do with Olive. Let her live out her days and die, or work some magic to keep her around a bit longer? She just gets so terribly lonely, all by herself in that big house.



She's already made arrangements for her next date, however...


The Smiths

The downstairs had a lot of work done, while the upstairs was only refurbished. The household ran out of money though, so it's not completely furnished just yet.







Home life for the Smiths is pretty idyllic. They're like one of those perfect sitcom families, where at the end of the day all faults are forgiven, everyone loves eachother, and regular showers are required to wash off all the syrup. I like them, though, they're very refreshing to play after the rather depressing Specter household.



P.T. has taken up the role of housefather, and is getting to be a pretty decent cook. Most mornings are started off with fresh pancakes.



Johnny's LTW is to become Captain Hero, something which really suits his dreams of being a white knight. He's been building his bodyskill in preparation, though it comes in handy on those occasions where he has the chance to kick Tank's butt as well.



Little Jill falling asleep in the afternoon sun. She's usually very perky and active, running around all the time, so it was nice to snap a shot of her peacefully snoozing for once :)



This is a more typical pic of her. She's discovered the joys of dancing recently, and can't be beaten away from the radio most of the time.



A typical family breakfast. There's something very comforting in playing this household. There's no drama, no tears, everyone gets along and is content. I'm glad I play in a rotation, cause if I had to play them weeks on end I'd get really bored with them. As a breather in between more difficult households though, I really enjoy them.



Johnny's a Popularity sim, so he gets to spend his free time throwing parties and inviting over friends. I kinda like Ophelia's eyeroll here. It's like she's going 'sigh. boys.' to herself :)

Ripp is actually younger than Johnny and Ophelia, and he won't be going to college together with them. I send my sims to college the day before they'd normally age up, and Ripp's transition isn't until next round. He'll probably find a different circle of friends, but for now, they're all still BFF's.



Johnny and Ophelia are still dating and being all cutesy together, but who knows what college will bring?



I failed to give Jill a proper birthday with cake and candles as well. I'm really terrible at remembering when sims transition :( She grew up well though, and is as cute as a teen as she was as a child. She's given up dancing in favour of playing around in the pool nowadays.



Jenny spends most of her time at work, or working to advance in her career. She wants to be a Chief of Staff and doesn't have that much time left to achieve it. Luckily, occasionally studying for work and spending time with her kids can be combined.



P.T.'s LTW was to have 3 grandchildren though, a dream that I wasn't sure he'd live long enough to fulfill. In a stroke of luck the gypsy delivered a lamp though, and he was able to wish for peace of mind.
I'm not very surprised the Smiths got a genie, they pretty much run around in a constant state of near-terminal happiness.



P.T. and Jenny got very friendly with Herb and Coral Oldie, and invite them over regularly for drinks or dinner. For some reason Coral kept evading the camera, though.



Very suave look on P.T. there :D



And we leave the Smiths just as Johnny leaves for college.


The Beakers

The Beaker house is more or less the one that I've uploaded here on my journal, with a few changes in room layout and furnishings.





Classic and rather sparse seems to be the style that suits them best.



Loki strutting his scientific stuff. He's not all that bad-looking, if you fix his eyebrows. Did he get in a bad lab-accident that blew them off, and then had them grafted back on upside-down or something? I don't mind weird facial features, but those brows just don't make any sense. I'm kinda hesitant about breeding with him, but Circe really wants a baby...



... and Circe always gets what she wants.



Nervous just tries to stay out of their way as much as possible. He's found some measure of peace and quiet in painting.



His LTW is to become a Celebrity Chef, so he's been practising hard. The Beakers don't really think about food until they're almost starving, they're just too busy to cook, so in that respect Nervous comes in pretty handy.



He's sort of been upgraded from test subject to cook/servant, taking care of meals and keeping the house clean. The Beakers can't have a maid running around in the house, what with all their probably-not-entirely-legal and definitely-not-legal experiments going on, so once again, Nervous comes in handy.



He still gets to play test subject occasionally, though.

I feel rather bad for him. Nervous doesn't really have a purpose in life, aside from being the Beaker's servant. He really wants to fall in love, get married, have a family... but there aren't really single sims out there that I'd see him with. He's gay according to the game's presets, and I do want to keep him that way, but he doesn't seem stable enough to leave the Beakers and set himself up with a random townie somewhere.
I don't really know what to do with him. Suggestions?



Circe is heavily pregnant by now, though that doesn't stop her from updating her financial portfolios. She's an all work, no play sort of lady. I don't really think I've seen her sit down in front of the telly, or anything.



She's in the Oceanography career (I'm not sure whether she wants to be a Hand of Poseidon, or just wants to make lots of simoleons), and has set up an aquarium room for her private studies. Feeding the fish and watching them keeps her happy enough.



Circe gives birth while Loki is at work, watched by Nervous, who totally freaked out over all of it. The baby's a girl, named Freya. I dread for her facial features.



Rightfully so, it turned out. She's just a pint-sized little Loki. A female pint-sized little Loki. Poor thing.



Loki: "Damn. I'm sorry, kid. I should have edited your genetics when you were still in the womb, but Circe wouldn't let me touch her."



Once she grows up, she'll be really thankful for the miracles of plastic surgery.


The Loner(s)

Ajay's house is that little orange starter house, given new wallpaper and furnished a bit more. It's really not very different from the original.



Playing one-sim households goes really, really fast, and Ajay is a fortune sim focussing on his career, which doesn't give terribly interesting gameplay as a result.



The reason that he's such a loner has become clear as well. And no, it's not because he's a pervert who sneakily spies on his neighbours by telescope.
Ajay wants to be the Head of the SCIA, and is working undercover in Strangetown for the intelligence service, reporting on suspicious military activity, and finding out if there's any truth in those stories about aliens that have invaded the town.



So far he's surmised that a) the military here seems hardly competent enough to tie their shoelaces, but he's pretty sure there's a secret division that's up to no good, and b)  he's only found one full-blood alien so far, but that one was pretty friendly and in fact welcomed him when he first moved into town with a jug of home-made iced lemonade.

He has also... met this girl. But he left that out of his reports.




Next up: The Grunts, The Curious Brothers, The Curious Sisters, and Kristen Loste.