The Werewolves of Baton Rouge—Matty Rounds 9 and 10

This is the house of the oldest child of my founder.  Matty Winchester lives here with his wife, Brenna, and their two adult sons, Sam and Tommy.  Sam is married to a criminal, Holly.  The two have a toddler daughter, Emma.

Refresh yourself on who is who with the Winchester Family Tree.

Matty Winchester

1. Loves the Outdoors
2. Genius
3. Frugal
4. Workaholic
5. Neat

Lifetime Want—Present the Perfect Aquarium—Achieved!

Brenna Winchester

1. Family Oriented
2. Kleptomaniac
3. Can’t Stand Art
4. Overemotional
5. Flirty

LTW—Have a household net worth of $100,000—Achieved!

Sam Winchester

1. Loves the Outdoors
2. Absent Minded
3. Technophobe
4. Loner
5. Natural Cook

LTW—Reach Top of Culinary Career

Holly Winchester

1. Family Oriented
2. Kleptomaniac
3. Savvy Sculptor
4. Charismatic
5. Hydrophobic

LTW—Become a Master Thief

Tommy Winchester

1. Loves the Outdoors
2. Heavy Sleeper
3. Daredevil
4. Hotheaded
5. Dramatic

LTW—Jack of All Trades (Reach Level 5 in 3 Different Careers)

Emma Winchester

1. Friendly
2. Good

Last round was an extremely busy and crazy round.  Brenna had a wardrobe malfunction at a concert.  Matty and Brenna became elders.  Holly was arrested for her criminal activities.  She also smuggled drugs into Egypt with the help of Tommy.

Sam is up in arms over his wife and brother being criminals. 

Sam tried to talk them both into quitting their criminal lifestyles.  Holly said it was too late for her; she was in too deep.  But after another round of jail time, Holly tried to talk Tommy out of the profession.  “Trust me, you do not want to serve time.  Jail is harsh.  They nearly starve you in there.  You can never get a good night’s sleep.  And trying to protect yourself from all those criminals is stressful.  Don’t end up in handcuffs like me.  Take Sam up on his offer to help you out and get out of the criminal ring before it’s too late.”

Funny story—when Holly was arrested (again!) we got a pop-up saying that the police were holding all of her belongings.  They didn’t want anyone getting jealous of her shower in a can!  I thought that was so funny.  She just had the shower in a can in her inventory from visiting Egypt, but I definitely think that could be useful in jail!  Too funny!

Tommy decided to hear Sam out.  Sam offered Tommy a job as a dishwasher at his diner.  It wasn’t exactly the glorious job Tommy wanted, but it was better than being in jail, he decided.  So Tommy accepted Sam’s offer and began working at the diner for him.

The change of professions is hard on Tommy, but it did bring Tommy and Sam closer together.

Tommy was pretty bored with his job as a dishwasher, so he spent a lot of his time trying out world adventures features.

Despite learning what his wife does for a living, Sam’s love for Holly hasn’t wavered.  He supports her even through her multiple arrests.

Holly continued her drug smuggling activities and reached a level 3 visa in France.  That enabled us to buy the elusive cranerlet nuala and gralladina fran grapes!  That means I have every available WA harvestable growing in my base hood now.

Time for a few adorable toddler pictures because the toddler stage really is my favorite.

With Holly spending so much time in jail and Sam practically living at the diner, Emma was mostly raised by her grandparents, Matty and Brenna.

Notice in this picture the teddy bear from Egypt Uncle Tommy bought Emma last round.

This round I also bought the baby and toddler swing from the Sims Store.  I’m not really a fan of releasing things through the Sims Store instead of through EPs, but I love this object more than just about any object we’ve gotten in an EP.  It’s adorable.

I love the new elder features with Generations.  Reminisce is probably my favorite, but Matty strikes me as the yell at the world elder type.

It’s always hard for me to age up my favorite sims, but Emma’s been a toddler longer than anyone thanks to my double round play.  Here’s Emma’s birthday party.

Emma Winchester

1. Friendly
2. Good
3. Animal lover

She’s even more beautiful as a child.  I know she’s my only generation 4 sim at the moment, but I’m pretty sure she’s going to be my favorite.  She even gives favorites from other generations like Christy, Amber, Raelin, and Elyssa a run for their money in the beauty department.

Emma is particularly close to her grandmother Brenna and her Uncle Tommy.

In Emma’s opinion, Uncle Tommy became the absolute best when he took Emma to a neighbor to adopt a kitten.

Meet Hannah, my first Sims 3 kitten.

Hannah Winchester

1. Non-destructive
2. Piggy

Sam is usually working at the diner, but he does spend some time bonding with his father over fishing and gardening.  It’s something they both love, and something that helps the restaurant have the highest quality food, which is very important to Sam.

Holly keeps working on her sculpting skill, but those sculpting skill challenges are hard!

Spying on the Neighbors:

Gnome Sightings:

Accomplishments This Round:

Matty completed the Botanical Boss Skill Challenge.

Sam completed the Master Planter Skill Challenge.  That completes all the gardening skill challenges for him.  Sam reached level 8 of the culinary career.

Holly reached level 8 of the criminal career.  She chose the thief branch.

Tommy reached level 4 of the culinary career, his second career on his mission to be a jack of all trades.  Tommy completed the Consignment Store Reputation, the Consignment Store Sales, the Consignment Store Reputation, and the Butterfly Collector Challenges.  The consignment store challenges are pretty easy if you sell product there.

Miscellaneous—they own a gnome of invention and an Egypt gnome.

The Werewolves of Baton Rouge—Alcide Rounds 9 and 10

This is the house of Alcide Winchester.  Alcide lives here with his wife, Frances Lum Winchester, and their two children, Sookie and Adrian.

Remind yourself who is who with the Winchester Family Tree. 

This (old) in-game family tree also shows Frances’ family tree.  She’s the child of the Lum family that comes in the sim bin. Her brother, Lawrence Lum, married Bella Bachelor through story progression.

Alcide Winchester

1. Loves the Outdoors
2. Artistic
3. Athletic
4. Family Oriented
5. Handy

Lifetime Want—Reach the top of the sports career—Achieved!

Frances Lum Winchester

1. Can’t Stand Art
2. Easily Impressed
3. Hopeless Romantic
4. Light Sleeper
5. Slob

Lifetime Want—Golden Fingers/Golden Tongue

Sookie Winchester

1. Easily Impressed
2. Good
3. Friendly
4. Family Oriented

Adrian Winchester

1. Athletic
2. Brave
3. Hotheaded
4. Commitment Issues

In the last round, Alcide was spending a lot of time traveling to China and working on martial arts, Frances was working her butt off to get to the top of the politics career, Sookie just met and fell in love with Bill, and Adrian had just become a hotheaded teenager with commitment issues.

Adrian has a lot of aggression at this age.  Being hotheaded with commitment issues is hard.  He’s a bit of a troublemaker and copies his sister’s homework every night.  He never seems to get caught, though.

When Alcide saw Adrian attacking his training dummy, Alcide saw an opportunity to channel Adrian’s aggression in a positive direction.

Round 9 was played before installation of Generations, so Alcide spent a lot of time in China working on the martial arts skill challenges.  He brought Adrian with him because he thought the discipline of martial arts might do the boy some good.

Alcide completed the Grand Master Martial Arts Skill Challenge.

Alcide found Pang’s Axe.  This was something I’d been working on for a really long time so I could explore all of the areas in World Adventures.  Of course I had no idea at the time that installing Generations would result in the World Adventure bugs that it did.  Does anyone know if this has been fixed yet?  I’d really like to begin travelling again, but I’m too scared!

Alcide also completed the Well Spelunker Travelling Skill Challenge.  Once home, he meditated and meditated forever until he finally accomplished the Master of Meditation Skill Challenge.

Frances was promoted to Leader of the Free World.  She also accomplished her lifetime want of Golden Fingers, Golden Tongue. 

And she formed Baton Rouge’s first sim band:  The Simtastics.  Band members include her brother, Lawrence Lum, sister-in-law, Bella Bachelor Lum, and brother-in-law Toby Dubose.  We’ve played two rounds, though, and never got an opportunity for a gig.  Does anyone know if you can get these opportunities outside of Bridgeport?

Sookie decided to make her lifetime wish The Culinary Librarian while she was a teen.  Her mission is to learn every recipe available in the game.  I’ve decided to make this challenge even harder by saying she needs to MAKE every recipe available in the game.

Sookie also welcomed a new member to the Winchester family.  No, she didn’t get pregnant as a teen!  She adopted a kitten.  Meet Tina.

Tina Winchester

1. Skittish
2. Hyper

She looked like Tina from the True Blood show to me.  She’s an American Bobtail.  Skittish and hyper kitty ought to be interesting.  I’m also hoping it might increase my chance of getting a Freezer Bunny gnome, which is the new one I REALLY want.  She does freak out a lot at everything.  Sometimes it’s warranted like here, but a lot of times it’s not.

She is an absolutely adorable.  I think the kittens from Sims 2 look a bit better, but I think the kittens from Sims 3 behave a lot more like real cats.  Tina also quickly gained the non-destructive trait.

It’s prom time!  Here’s Bill asking Sookie to be his date.

Sookie and Bill had a great prom experience.  Bill started the night off right by bringing Sookie flowers.  They headed off to prom together.  Shortly after arrival, Bill asked Sookie to go steady with him, and she said yes.

Hot-headed Adrian with his commitment issues had a much harder time of it.  Adrian got caught checking out someone else’s date and got into a fight right on the dance floor.  Oops!  Amazingly Adrian was voted prom king!  Maybe his fighting skills intimidated the other teens into voting for him because he certainly doesn’t have that many friends to vote for him.  Adrian hoped that being voted prom king would give him a better chance to get it on with a girl, but that was not to be.  He tried to hit on the head cheerleader and got into another fight with her date immediately after being crowned.  I think I’d like the fight pop-up more if he came home a bit bruised up.

Adrian ended up so hurt and upset from prom that he came home and cried on his father’s shoulder.

I did experiment around a bit with prom.  I discovered that sims you are not playing do not get pictures in their inventories or any memories of prom if you’re not playing them BUT if you time it just right and switch between houses, you can get a prom picture in the inventory for teens in multiple houses.  The picture is generated when the teen walks in the door to prom.  So if you switch to the other house right before the teen walks in the door, they’ll get the picture, then switch to the next house.  I still really wish there was a way to trigger prom when I want it.  I want one for each house that has a teen, but this works well enough.  I’ve played around with prom with several different teens now too.  I’ve found that if you go with a serious romance date, the prom never goes poorly.  If you are high relationship with the sim but are not going steady, the other sim will guaranteed ask your sim to go steady.  If you go stag, your chances of having a good prom aren’t too good.  Alex (in a previous house) started off having a bad prom but did happen to ask a girl to dance that he immediately hit it off with.  He then got full relationship points and an instant romance with her.  All the other sims I’ve sent stag to the prom have had a bad time.  They end up in fights or rejected for dances.  Also, whether you get prom king or queen seems to be random, but I do think that if your date is voted one, then your sim will be voted the corresponding title.

Here’s a picture of Christopher and Lisa (from a previous house) getting their prom picture taken.

With prom over, it was finally time for Sookie’s birthday party.

Sookie Winchester

1. Easily Impressed
2. Good
3. Friendly
4. Family Oriented
5. Perceptive

I think she is really beautiful.  Unique and unusual, but she turned out a really beautiful adult.

Here’s graduation:

Sookie graduated with highest honors and was voted most likely to have a large family.  I’ve had a couple of those, but I cannot let myself let that happen in this hood.  Do not have 6 kids for your founding sims in the Completion Challenge.  It makes for a large hood.

Despite her proud graduation from high school, Sookie got a job as a waitress at her cousin Sam’s diner.

Bill also became a young adult and asked Sookie if he could move in with her.  Sookie isn’t sure if she’s ready for marriage, but she said yes to letting her boyfriend move in.  I built him his own room next to Sookie’s so that could keep her little girl room, true to the show.

This got Bill and Sookie the eternally faithful reputation.  That statement in relation to Sookie just makes me laugh.  Well, anyway, she certainly doesn’t seem to mind spending time in Bill’s bed.

Here’s Bill’s graduation despite the fact that he aged up a couple of days prior to moving in.  He was voted most likely to get married.  We will have to see about that Bill.  Sookie might have a say in that.

From one extreme to the other, looks like Adrian with his commitment issues finally found a girl interested in his unfaithful flirting. It’s Kaylynn Langerak, the maid who was having an affair with a married man in the Sims 2.

Visiting the Neighbors (my favorite feature of Sims 3):

Cousins Sookie and Selene are close.

Frances visits her sister-in-law Alicia and niece Grace.

Apparently Amber is ready for grandbabies.

Little Eric is already practicing being in charge.  He thinks he’s king of it all.

I can’t decide if Eric made Elyssa mad in this one or if she’s guarding him and mad at someone that was bothering him.

Gnome Sightings:

Accomplishments this round:

Alcide completed the Plumber Skill Challenge, the Well Spelunker Travelling Skill Challenge, the Grand Master Martial Arts Skill Challenge, and the Master of Meditation Skill Challenge.

Frances was promoted to Leader of the Free World.  She also accomplished her lifetime want of Golden Fingers, Golden Tongue and completed the Everybody’s Best Friend Skill Challenge.

Sookie actually completed her lifetime want of Culinary Librarian and the Menu Maven Skill Challenge according to the game.  She’s actually only at 64% of recipes with all the EPs installed.  I’m not counting this done until we reach 100%.

Sookie and Bill received the eternally faithful reputation.

Adrian was prom king.

We also get a point for having a playable cat.