I recently started a megahood and it's been an eye-opening experience for me- some sims I had either really loved or hated on a previous play through are suddenly coming across completely differently!

I think I mentioned this in another thread, but I'm really liking Ashley Pitts of Sim State this time around. Last time I played, he was a jerk and (unsuccessful) womanizer who couldn't even keep his job as a criminal, and he went around town being a total jerk towards other sims. After his wife divorced him to move up in society and marry Malcolm Landgraab (she was a jerk too), and he'd lost his job, and his kids moved out to live with their grandparents, I was so sick of playing him that I had to have him have a "midlife crisis" (changed his aspiration to fortune) for him to be playable for me. And I never do stuff like that. This time through, on the other hand, he immediately started rolling academic wants and he has yet to perform any autonomous mean actions against others either when he's active or inactive. He's also now into guys, so he clearly won't be a womanizer. But he's not shaping up to be much of a heartbreaker this game anyway, and he seems pretty happy with Ty Bubbler.

On the other hand, this time around Checo Ramirez has become a real jerk. To be fair, I haven't played him in years, but he always came across to me as a struggling business owner who loves his family. But now, he wastes no opportunity to cheat on his pregnant wife. Like kissing Lola Curious, of all people, and then jumping right into bed with Candy Hart of Widespot. Yes, ACR may be to blame, but I have had plenty of married sims (for example, Stephen Tinker, who I've deemed the stud of the megahood because every female sim seems to have two or three bolts with him) refuse to cheat at all. And I've had others who will flirt a bit, but then think better of it and return to being faithful to their spouse. So clearly Checo is just a cheater. I want Lisa to find out so she can ditch him and find someone better! If Checo is a jerk, Lisa is absolutely the sweetest, always rolling wants to read a sim to sleep (I didn't know this was a want till I saw her roll it), and she's not even a family aspiration sim!

Anyway, I'm curious which premade sims have surprised you in their different iteration in a new neighborhood? How did they change? Or even if it's your first time playing the premade, how did they surprise you based on what you thought they would be like? This stuff interests me so much because you'd think with the same personality and aspiration they'd basically act the same each time, but that's almost never the case!

When I play Strangetown (I've played loads and restart it a lot), General Buzz usually ends up surprising me. I'm never quite sure about him, like I find it hard to pin down his personality. The Maxis backstory paints him as a villain, but I think that there's definitely a soft side somewhere that is devastated about his wife's death, stressed by his military job and aliens, and ends up taking it out on Ripp.

Another one is Dina Caliente - sometimes when I play her she's an unscrupulous gold-digger who knows full well what she's up to, other times she's just a pawn in her alien family's plot, and other times a total innocent who just happens to fall in love with men several years her senior. I'm not sure which I prefer to be honest, but I usually play the first variety.

I just started a whole-town rotation in Strangetown, and Buzz strikes me the same way. In his family's last rotation, he rejected his youngest for a hug while simultaneously having a want to be friends with said child, and he keeps rolling fears of having bad conversation or being enemies with his kids, or one of his kids dying. He's such a mess! And such a contrast to Pollination Tech 9, who is enjoying his retirement with his loving family, and seems very laid back and chill about everything. I should really have the two families interact more. I think a dinner party from hell is in the cards. The two oldest boys may just end up at the same college, too...

Buzz is a very interesting character!

Funny enough in light of pinimon162's post, in my game Dina Caliente and Buzz are trying to make something work. Dina left Mortimer at the altar after she caught him woohooing with Nina- I guess even Dina learned that sometimes the money is just not worth it. Now her desire for money is in the form of her trying to advance in her show business career. And I think having her in the house is good for the boys, especially Buck (who rolled a want to gain a family member). And there's the added drama of Dina having alien blood, but it not being visible- would Buzz still want to be with her if he knew?

In my game, Johnny and Tank did both go to La Fiesta Tech, along with Ophelia... they were the only teens in the megahood who turned the right age at the same time, and all three went to the same college for different reasons (Johnny would feel uncomfortable anywhere else with his alien skin, Ophelia wanted to go with Johnny, and the school has the best military training program for Tank). Since all new freshman have to start together in the dorms... I literally couldn't leave Johnny and Tank alone for a minute, they'd be attacking each other! Thankfully, Johnny's now in the fraternity and Tank moved into my version of studious housing (essentially a large house with lots of skilling items which you can only stay in if you maintain a 3.5 GPA or higher- in La Fiesta Tech it also has a science/military academic focus, since that goes along with Strangetown). So no more fighting every minute.

Carlos Contender surprised me. I don't usually like playing 1 sim families. Especially elders with no children (I like them to host lots of family events and meet grandchildren and such). Carlos reached the 20 woohoos of his LTW and ended up having 3 sons, with 2 different women - all born on the same day. He's now taking care of his niece's pregnant daughter and her little white kitten Snowball. According to Wiki, in the original neighbourhood he was a popularity sim - I think I wouldn't have had that much fun with him like that, I'm glad he's a romance in my game.

I can see that working! Though there would probably be fireworks if Dina's heritage came out, jeez. I've never had it happen in my games, but is there a chance that a normal-looking hybrid could have a child that has the alien features? Or is it already too watered-down? Because that would be amazing. And awww, Buck. That kid makes me sad. He's in aspiration failure in my game, since Buzz fails at affection in an eerily realistic macho military sort of way. If it weren't for Ripp, the kid wouldn't get any quality attention at all.

For some reason, I'm obsessed with seeing if I can get Johnny and Tank to bury the hatchet (it's not working too well, since in my game Ophelia hates Tank, too, so they end up ganging up on him.) Does Tank hate Johnny because his dad hates Johnny's dad? How much of that whole situation is he aware of? Or is Johnny the aggressor? He's always rolling wants to annoy Tank, and he's usually the winner when there's a fight. (And then Tank's got his dysfunctional family to go back to. Tank cries a lot in my game, poor guy.)

Having all three go to college together sounds awesome, though. For the moment, I'd like to see Johnny and Ophelia stay together (though college has a way of breaking up high school sweethearts, muahaha). Tank needs to find some friends, though. And maybe let go of that awkward face paint, because holy second-hand embarrassment, Batman. Now I just have to wait on my lifespan mod to let them age up...

I had Buzz and Nina get together once.

As far as genetics go, I think Dina and Nina don't carry the alien genes. However, I have had a family with an alien in, call it generation 1, have alien features in 2, none in 3, then the genetics appear in 4, so the great-grandchildren of the sim with the alien genes. The alien's daughter had dad's blue eyes and shape with mom's green skin, the three grandchildren were normal sims, but among the twelve great-grandchildren one got the green skin and two got the black eye color, but not the shape.

One thing I've seen with Buzz in my Strangetown is that... well, he protests too much. He thinks aliens are filthy, dirty, perverted... and he heartfarts at the Curious sisters Chloe and Lola something fierce!

In my game, he married alien general Idun (whose genetics are almost entirely based on Dina, actually!) a mean-tempered xenophobe who was sent to Strangetown from her home planet for some sensitivity training disguised as some forced R&R. They're ridiculous together, picking fights with human/alien couples and half-aliens, arguing furiously and then making out with equal fervor.


They've had one son together -- named Howitzer -- who's the most short-tempered, surly 10-points-Nice sim in the world:


All of Buzz's sons are dating or married to half-aliens, and the generals turn a blind eye. After all, it's different when it's your own.

Johnny, Tank and Ophelia were together at uni in my game (and Johnny and Ophelia stayed together, and are now married and expecting their fourth child). Tank started a year after the other two, and he started fights with Johnny all the time! Then Johnny (studying Political Science) spent a semester learning "History Majors: Why You Should Hate Them" (Tank studies History) and the semester after that Tank learnt "Political Science Majors: Why You Should Hate Them"!

The sim that has surprised me most is not actually a premade sim but their child - Diana Curious, toddler daughter of Chloe Curious and townie Abjiheet Cho, spends her time charming everyone and dancing to the stereo. I don't know what she's going to do in her life, but whatever it is - it's going to be big.

I hope I'm not committing a forum sin by reviving this thread from 5 months ago....(or at least I hope I don't get the MATY treatment for it)

Benjamin Baldwin surprised me because I just assumed that he was an African American sim based on his appearance. Therefore, I was only allowing him to have hairstyles that I believe look 'realistic' for an African American male to have which is frustrating sometimes because good quality African American hairstyles for both male and female sims are somewhat hard to come by. I always snatch up good ones when I find them.

Anyway, while playing the Baldwins one day, I looked into their family tree. Benjamin is actually part Latino; not just African American. Well, this opens up more hairstyle choices for him IMO (I like to change sims' hairstyles at least daily - because I have so many pretty custom hairs & I just think it's fun).

Just reinforces that you really can't judge a book by its cover even if it's pixelated. :-)

One sim that surprised me Buzz. Buck's bio paints Buzz as being a distant father to him, but in my game, he was actually a pretty warm father towards him and they even became best friends at one point.

Another is Tank and Ophelia. Considering Tank hates Johnny Smith so much and Ophelia is Johnny's girlfriend, I assumed they wouldn't interact much, but once I sent them to college, they actually became friends; in one iteration, I think Tank even had a crush on her, but I put a stop to that. And in another version, Tank flirted with Stella Terrano, which was surprising considering his family.

Then there's Nervous; in fanon,, he's usually painted as this sort of frail, shy guy but he could actually be a bit of dick to people sometimes; I've seen him picking fights more than once

Don Lothario!!
I know people here don't like him much but he can be such a well-rounded and interesting sim if given a chance. I feel like he has deep-seated mom issues which explains how obsessed he gets the minute he has a child of his own. He literally is the funniest case of a helicopter parent. I love him and I love playing him as a father because he literally shames the hardened family sims in his devotion to his kids.
Buzz is another curious case. Tybalt Capp is again, someone I am surprised by. He is kind of snooty and annoying but is surprisingly adorable when actually forced to hang out with the sims he dislikes. His hatred for Montys feel more like ignorance than genuine dislike IMO.

I had ACR change Johnny and Tank's preferences once.

They were triple bolter enemies. It was hysterical.

Don Lothario surprised me. I didn't expect him to be as good of a father as he was, nor did I expect him to be so heartbroken over Cassandra. He had left her at the altar. He cried for days. He even remained in love with her, even after she hated his guts and constantly stole his newspaper and only wanted to argue with him when he came around to spend time with his triplets. It took some of her nagging him after she would get back from work (I used the teleporter to send him to her apartment to help watch the triplets with the nanny) for him to get over her.