University round 1

Ellie: Here we are at sim state university, where Neil Henderson and his girlfriend Sophie have completed their first two years at college. Let's go find them and see how it went.
Ellie: Hello Sophie how are you.


Sophie: Good thanks. Me and Neil just finished our sophmore year. Glad that exams are over, but at least they went well. We're both getting 4.0s. No surprise there for Neil. He's always been into studying. Me I just do it because I know I'll need good grades for my future career. I want to become a famous architect one day. Maybe then I can construct some more exciting houses around here. They all look kind of the same for now.

Ellie: To be expected from a small town, I suspect. But it's growing, at least. Any plans to add to that as well?

Sophie: You mean babies? Maybe some day. But first of all I'd like to concentrate on my career. And Neil has his studies. That'll keep us busy for a while.

Ellie: Alright then. So tell us how your first two years at college went.

Sophie: Well, when we got her we both moved into the same dorm. I decided to major in mathematics, and Neil in Physics.

Ellie: Wouldn't have been my first choices. But go on...

Sophie: One of the first things we did was get new outfits. The stuff we arrived in was pretty hideous. Well, one of the first things, really. Neil wanted to get his term paper out of the way right away. And in the meanwhile I got to know some of the other people in the dorm. They seem nice so far. And you can never have too many friends.


We did our coursework and went to class. The usual, you know. And then there was a lot of general study time, especially for Neil. But once in a while we did make time for a date or two. We're still going strong, even if we aren't attached at the hip like some couples. I quite like it that way.


When I wasn't studying I spent a lot of time watching sports with the guys at the dorm. I've always been a bit of a tomboy, I guess. Neil's not too into it, but I made some good friends that way.


The only really exciting thing that happened was that I got abducted. No not by aliens by the secret society people. I didn't even know they existed, so I had no idea what this guy wanted from me in the middle of the night. And getting led off in handcuffs was so embarrassing! Thank god everyone else was asleep! Of course I made sure to hook up neil with the right people so he could get in as well. He's not the most social person by nature. I think it's good for him to get away from the books from time to time though.


Everything went smoothly at the dorm and everyone seemed to get along reasonably well. Except for River and Lilly. They started off on the wrong foot I guess and never did like each other. It even came to blows on one occasion. I wasn't too impressed. Beating up girls is not a gentelman's way of handling things River!


Other than that the two years went by uneventfully. Hopefully it'll be just as smooth sailing until we graduate. We might be moving off campus though next year. It's so much more peaceful, but I'll miss my friends here.

Author's notes: These two are possibly the most boring couple ever. Both spent most of their time skilling or doing schoolwork and never rolled up a single want for each others outside their dates. At least Sophie is somewhat outgoing. They've been working on the hobby plaques too to loosen things up a bit. Neil got cooking on top of the art one he already had and Sophie's pretty close on tinkering.

Points for this round:
- 1 for 1 new Sim, Sophie Miguel

Introducing the Fosters

Samantha: *snarls menacingly*


Ellie: *Squirms and backs away* I'm just a poor scientist don't hurt me!

Samantha: What? Oh, sorry about that. Bad habbit. You're the person here to interview us eh? Let's get inside it's way too bright out here.

Ellie: *glances at the overcast sky* If you wish?

Samantha: *settles down in a darkened off room* Ok let's get started then. Hope you don't mind the dim lighting. You see, I'm a bit sensitive to sunlight, for obvious reasons. But we'll get to those later. I'm Samantha foster and I moved here in late summer along with my two boys. My older son, Malcom.

And little Ian.

Also here with us is my mother, Celia. She's alwas got her head in a book. Malcom somes after her, I'm afraid. He's got her red hair too.

Then there's mom's half-sister, my aunt Mandy. I've always gotten along great with her. She's a lot more fun than mom.

We share a love for men, which I guess is how I got landed with my boys. And how she got hers. My cousin Kevin lives with us too. He's bookish like mom and Ian. I guess it skips generations. Can't wait to see his kids become romance sims some day. If he ever manages to get any on the way, that is. I've never seen him with a woman. He's more interested in fish. Not in that way, of course. But you know what I mean.

Ellie: One would hope not. He looks innocent enough.


Samantha: One of the first things I did after getting here is I went downtown to check out the locals. This guy didn't seem too impressed when I hinted at my intentions. Thankfully they're not all like that.


I even got a date off that gypsy chick. Didn't end too well. I guess I'll have to find dates myself after all. We really don't have the money for tons of blind dates, even though both me and Kevin got jobs. I'm in entertainment, and he chose oceanography of course.


Mom had a bit more luck. She had a little flirt with the guy from next door. Who'd have thought! But they're both so shy and bookish I don't think anything more came of it. Who knows maybe that'll change someday


We all pitched in to teach Ian his skills. It was a relief to finally have him talking. Now I actually know what he wants. Not sure if walking was a good idea, but potty training definitely was!



Malcom went to Kevin for homework help instead of me. Good thing, since I was never all that great at school. I managed to scrape by somehow, but that's it. He's probably smarter than I am by now. Kevin's different, he was always top of the year when we were growing up. What a nuissance I tell you. The number of times I got told to be more like him. Thank god I never listened.


I did end up meeting and dating some more interesting men on one of my next trips downtown. The count is such a charming man. And does he ever have stories to tell. After all he's been around for a while.


We went on a bit of a date downtown. I think this might have potential. But I'm not ready to settle down with one guy just yet. I want to experience that first rush of butterflies with as many people as possible!


Aunt Mandy wasn't being lazy either. As soon as we had the money she insisted on buying a double bed and broke it right in. Don't know what this guy's name is and I doubt it matters. He didn't last too long.


Meanwhile mom got really into cooking. I mean extremely. She can do lobster thermidor and all that fancy stuff now. Not that we can afford that kind of thing most of the time.


On thursday it was finally time for Ian's birthday. We didn't really throw a party. He's too little to remember it anyway, and we don't really know many kids his age to invite. Guess we could have invited the Fergusons, but I don't really know them that well.


Ugh! Hideous! Can you believe they made me wear that at work? Playing the clown for little kids at their birthday is so not what I expected when I went into entertainment. Thank god I got promoted and only had to wear it one day, but all I wanted to do was run inside and tear it off!


Malcom's started a little garden for when he's not busy with schoolwork. As long as he's the one taking care of it I don't mind. He even managed to raise a crop of tomatoes before the winter and lerned a lot about gardening. As I said. He's a smart boy.


Our financial problems dissolved literally overnight when one of aunt Mandy's lovers brought her this hot tub as a present. I was all for keeping it, but we really needed the money. Maybe one day we can buy it back.


I taught Ian to study after his first day of school. I can do primary school stuff. I'm not that stupid.


Meanwhile, Kevin's been moving up in his career too. One day, he came home insisting that he'd seen a mermaid. Can you believe it? Thankfully he decided not to tell anyone or they'd have thought he was crazy. I blame it on being underwater too long. Lack of oxygen to the brain and all that. His boss wasn't as smart as he was and blabbed about it to anyone who would listen. Lucky for Kevin because he got his job when he was forced to retire in shame.


Over the weekend I was feeling a bit lonely so I invited the count for a late night date. We ended up getting pretty close. Maybe a bit too close!


Wow, like that was the weirdest feelign ever! But I guess it's kind of cool being a vampire apart from the whole nocturnal thing. I'll be young forever, and there'll be generations of young men to date!


The sun thing stinks though. Thank god it was winter or I'm not sure I would have made it to the carpool from the house. Even so I felt as if I was burning up. I mean, I know I'm smokin' hot but that's going too far! At least I got a decent outfit from work though.


Now that Ian was in school, we decided to see whether we could get the boys into private school. Malcom was raving about it ever since his friend Neil got in. Aunt Mandy decided to schmooze up the headmaster a bit by telling him about all the friends she has. He didn't seem too impressed though.

Ellie: Maybe he knows what kind of friends those are

Samantha: *chuckles* perhaps. It didn't matter though. Mom whipped up something really good for dinner and we've been able to fix the house up a bit, so the boys got in.


That same night something really strange happened. Mom went out to stargaze a bit on the telescope and all of a sudden she was gone! She didn't come back until hours later and got booted out of this strange spaceship thing. Freaky!


Kevin was fascinated with it of course. He spent the next night watchign to see whether they'd come back, but they didn't. All he saw was the usual stars and such.


Mom took it all in stride. She thought it was a fascinating adventure, but wouldn't say much more about it. Only downside, she said, is that her bum really hurt from the landing. I bet. That thing was pretty high up!


Ellie: Wow, what an eventful week! I'll see you next week to hear how the story continues. *exits while making sure her scarf securely covers her neck*


Author's notes:
When I rolled this family I was thinking about marrying Samantha and Kevin instead, but they didn't seem to match at all personality wise. Now that I see her LTW I'm glad I chose the version I did.

Also, I changed everyone's genetics in SimPE to make this genetically diverse family actually work out. Like giving Samantha a recessive red hair gene that shows both in her mother and her son. I'm a biologist so I can't stand things like that being inconsistent. Plus I like babies that don't all look the same. Malcom and Ian don't have the same father, by the way.

And I really didn't plan on the vampire thing. At least not this soon. Samantha was feeling lonely one night so she called up the count for a date. I only left my eyes off them for a minute to put Ian to bed, I swear, and boom!

Points this round:
- 6 for 6 new sims: Mandy, Celia, Samantha, Kevin, Malcom and Ian

Introducing the Fergusons

Ellie: Hello Mr. Ferguson.

Edward: Oh, you must be the researcher girl right?

Ellie: Word sure does spread fast in this town doesn't it.

Edward: There isn't much else to gossip about I guess

Ellie: True that. Well, since you alreay know who I am, how about you introduce yourself and your family?

Edward: *smiles* Alrighty then. First of all, there's me, Edward Ferguson. I moved up here to enjoy my retirement a few years ago. Back then I didn't have any neighbors at all. I was hopeing that I could get some studying in in peace.


Ellie: Didn't quite turn out that way did it?

Edward: Not quite. You see a few years later my daughter moved back in with me with her family. They were having a bit of a rough time in their old town. You see, their living arrangements are a bit... unorthodox.

Ellie: Oh really?

Abigale: What my father's trying to say is, we're gay. I personally don't see the problem, but our old neighbours weren't too pleased. Let's just say we weren't the most popular family in the neighborhood. I didn't want my kids to grow up with that. So we moved up here with dad. There's a photo of me, by the way, and the little cutie I'm holding is my son Lenny.


And this is my wife Melissa with our other son, Brian. Aren't they adorable? We were really lucky to be able to adopt them both.

Ellie: Indeed!


Abigale: I wasn't too thrilled to hear that the government was planning to develop this area some more and that we were getting new neighbors. They seemed alright though. They came over the first day to say hi.


We spent most of the next few days teaching the boys all they had to know to grow up well. Between the two of us and dad it wasn't too hard, even though me and Melissa got jobs as well. We both decided to go into politics. We're hoping to improve the standing of homosexuals in society, and what better place to start than the government.



While we were away at work the boys spent most of their time playing with their blocks. They get along really great most of the time.

Ellie: Awe! Just like real brothers

Abigale: They are real brothers.

Ellie: Of course. Sorry.

Abigale: Anyway. Our career got off to a great start. Within a few days both of us were selected to be lobbyists for the sim gay union. Our job was to try and influence politicians into passing more gay-friendly laws.


I feel we've come quite a way already. We seem to not have as many problems here as we used to in our old town. This guy, Komei, even told me he thought it was great that me and Melissa had gotten married.


Way too soon, it was time for the boys to grow up. Here are photos of Lenny and Brian on their birthday.

Ellie: *eyes the pink pijamas* You sure it was a good idea to let the boy grow up without a male influence?

Abigale: It's absolutely normal for boys to like pink. Nothing wrong with it. Besides. They have my father if they want to talk to a man.


Ellie: *eyes the long hair* Positive?

Abigale: Absolutely.

Ellie: If you say so...


Abigale: Dad's been spending a lot of time painting lately. It's his newest subject of study, he says. As long as it makes him happy I'm fine with it. I just wish he'd spend more time with the boys sometimes. He's a fine babysitter, but usually just lets them play while he paints.


The boys have made up for it by finding friends at school. Brian brought this nice girl home from school with him and they played all afternoon...


And Lenny was telling us over dinner about all the new kids he'd met. I'm glad that they're adjusting to the move well.


And with the boys a bit older now, me and Melissa finally have a bit more time for ourselves as well.


Author's notes:
I'm loving this family already, and I'm so glad I decided to make the two women a couple instead of sisters. I was mostly hoping to avoid a population explosion (plus single family sims are always so miserable) but it made for a great storyline as well. Them getting into politics was pure coincidence by the way. It was the highest paying job that didn't need skills. I didn't even think of the plotline until I saw the lobbyist promotion popup.

New points:
- 5 for 5 new sims: Edward, Abigale, Melissa, Lenny and Brian