So I absolutely love Pleasantview, I have tried other premade neighborhoods, but nothing compares. So I have restarted...yet again humph, and as always I have the challenge of figuring out what I wanna do with Brandi Broke!

I have tried several ideas but they never seem to "fit" her. I don't think it's practical for her to be whisked away by Mortimer Goth who always marries Dina much to Cassandras' dismay, and I don't think she should stay poor forever...

I am at a loss, so tell me what you have done with her!

I haven't done anything to speak of in Pleasantview, but here are some options I come up with off the top :
1) She starts a home business; makeover chair springs to mind. (You can remake her trailer in a way that makes sense to generate the cash.)
2) She becomes Don Lotahrio's kept woman.
3) She works dead-end night jobs so Dustin can quit the criminal career and be home to look after the Littles till Beau's old enough to babysit, when he goes to college.
4) She picks a guy and marries him - Cyd Roseland, Darren Dreamer, and John Burb should all be compatible, though of course getting John Burb involves breaking up his marriage to Jennifer.
5) She picks a woman ditto - Cassandra, Mary Sue, Jennifer, and Dina should all work for various values of working.
6) She abandons her children and runs off to pursue a dream of stardom.
7) She goes into aspiration failure and loses custody.
8) She becomes abusive and messes up her boys in a highly dramatic fashion.
9) Dustin drops out for her sake and they live a long co-dependent, impoverished life that prevents his ever having a satisfactory adult relationship.
10) Dustin knocks up Angela and Brandi lets her move into the trailer; they split child care.

Back when I still had Sims 2 installed, when ever I would play the Broke family... I would end up just making a sim guy to woo and marry Brandi. She seemed too nice to leave all alone.
As of late... been wishing I had the Sims 2 families for my Sims 3. Kind of wanted to pair Brandi up with Buzz Grunt. Donno why, just seems like they would be a good pair in my mind.

I had her marry Nervous Subjects and have lots of kids.

Before I started writing my story about Pleasantview, I played the hood and had Brandi marry Darren Dreamer. They made a cute couple and had a BEAUTIFUL daughter who I named Lucille. That was fun. She always gets the pre determined hobby of arts and crafts so I often build her a sewing studio and have her get a gold sewing badge. I think her LTW is usually to become a captain hero which is easy to do.
She has a pretty different character in my story though. I don't want to be THAT GIRL but, if you love Plesantview you might be interested in checking it out. Plus, I don't want to give any spoilers away and talk about what I did with her in the story.

What does Brandi want?

Babies! Are they so broke because she spent every penny to get pregnant one last time by Skip after his death? Use triplets and quads and give her quads. Then she can marry off six kids.

Or if that's too much hair pulling out for you, maybe she'd like to get all three of her kids to graduate from college. Let her hire a nanny for the little kids and work in education so she can keep track of what Dustin (and later Beau) is up to at school and be home when school's out.

If you want her working but not getting lots of bonus money, I heard Gilbert Jacquet down at J'adore Bakery in Bluewater could use a cook.

Peni's #10 has happened before in my game, and Angie and Dustin make cute kids. (That Brandi was pregnant by Gilbert, her boss, at the same time as Angie, both babies conceived on the same sofa.) Angie didn't much care for being free childcare--I use Inteen.

Before I rebooted my hood, I had Brandi married to Chester Gieke, and boy were they cute! He's not the most-handsome man, but he was so sweet to her, it made up for his lack of looks. Of course, I didn't really think to change his hair, so he might look better with something else.

In my Pleasantview, Brandi threw herself at John Burb. She wanted more kids, and so did he, so he was happy to dump workaholic Jen and hook up with Brandi and her clown-car uterus. They had five more kids together, all girls, too - despite John's longing for a male heir to carry on the fine Burb name.

My Brandi's got a small thing going on with Darren Dreamer right now. I also want to have her open a home business selling cakes. Put those cooking points to work! You could have her get together with Malcolm Landgraab if you want to really lift her out of poverty. He wants to join the criminal career track, so he could take Dustin under his wing and they could form their own criminal gang while Brandi takes care of the real businesses.

How about letting her go to work once the kids get big enough? She's got dreams of being a sports star-so, let her do it! Don't marry her off..don't relegate her to being just a baby-maker. She's smart enough and really should have her own life.
Change her aspiration to Popularity, and see what happens. Change her character points and make her work for a living.

Her widowhood is a chance for her to discover how independent she can be. I think Dustin doesn't respect her because he thinks she's just another lazy mama, willing to let a man take care of her forever. He resents the fact that she always seems to be doing nothing but having babies, and he suspects she might have had a hand in his father's death, although he can't prove it.

Lots of room for character and story growth, I'd say. Experiment!

My Brandi became a victim of a man who married women, had a child with them, divorced them and married another woman. After that she didn't trust anyone outside her children, but just wanted to have a baby so badly, that she had a child with Dustin.

My plan was for her to be completely devoted to her kids and slowly pull herself out of poverty, then get married, but that's not what happened. Due to ACR, she got involved with someone right after I started playing. He was there when the third baby was born and she almost immediately got pregnant again and had kids four and five. Another family had a restaurant and they hired Brandi to cook, but she quit on opening night. I let her be irresponsible after that. I gave her the unofficial job of town wedding caterer, so she gets extra money every once in awhile, which she quickly blows, so her family is still barely scraping by. Things might improve now that five of the seven kids are out of the house. It sounds bleak, but her favorite kid and her grandchildren visit a lot and she and her husband are inseparable, so she's a happy family sim.

Having recently watched the entire series, Weeds, it occurs to me that aside from the fact that Brandi is already pregnant with child #3, the setup is quite close to how Weeds starts out, which is with a recently-widowed mom with two boys, needing to make ends meet. Now I'm very tempted to pattern Brandi after the Weeds mom, get her the Slacker career reward weed grower and set her up selling "baked goods" with a kick.

Isn't Dustin her son?

I give Brandi a make over and send her downtown to find a 3 bolter and have her get married and have 3 more kids or so.

Normally the guy has over 10k to bring to the family so she is able to enlarge the house while the guy works for more money.

I use all premade houses that the family starts in and just build on to them, I keep the org. rooms and just add to them.

She became a teacher and married Darren Dreamer in my game. They seem pretty much made for each other.

Before I start, I want to make sure ... plowing over the pool and moving Brandi out will NOT corrupt the game, right? There is no grave for Skip. Correct? I have Googled until my eyes were tired, and haven't seen ANYTHING about corruption and Skip's grave, the pool or Brandi. And I do play a clean version of the neighborhood ... have for years.

Just want to know because I don't want someone corrupting their game because of me.

My poor Brandi has had lots of aspiration failures. Trying to keep three kids on the straight and narrow is no easy feat. She was a mistress of Mortimer for a while (don't let the docile appearance fool you .... Mortimer knows the laydeez like his money, and he has no qualms stringing them along, giving them a few prezzies now and again). In one of my variations, she even had a child with him. In all fairness to Mortie, he did pay child support and made sure his child attended college.

But after a time, she decided she didn't want that kind of lifestyle for herself and started a cottage industry, plowing over the pool in the backyard that held so many bad memories for her and building a small shed to exhibit her wares. Her "wares" differ. Sometimes, thanks to ACR, she HAS sold that sort of "wares", but again, decided that she wanted something more and quit the trade (except in one scenario). Sometimes, she painted. Sometimes, she sold trinkets. I haven't played her since I got FT (late bloomer in getting that one ... got it only this year and haven't played Pleasantview on my reinstalled game yet). There seems to be more stuff for cottage industries in that expansion.

I haven't had her write novels about her experiences yet .... hmmm ... worth a thought if Mr. Humble gives her a computer. He should. He gives one to just about everyone else a Simmer plays! He's just one crazy philanthropist, I guess.

Eventually, however she does it, Brandi makes enough to expand her trailer a little, gets a full-time job once the kids are older, meets a great guy. I've had her marry my user-mades. NEVER Mortie. In time, she usually moves to a small house once she marries, and devotes herself more to her full-time job, though she might paint now and again to make a little extra cash.

In one variation, she was a madam and bought a nightclub. Her husband helped manage the bar and dance floor; she made sure her employees entertained the richer clientele in the way they were accustomed. She became one of the richest people in Pleasantview, rivaling even Mortie.

Brandi is fun that way. Her backstory leads to all sorts of possibilities .... a sort of romance-novel innocent heroine, a confident businesswoman,a woman who does what she can to survive, a woman who plays the system for all it's worth and wins. I find her, the Goth family and Don Lothario fun characters to play.

Deleting the pool is fine, and yes, there's no tombstone for Skip. (If you want one, it's possible to respawn it, but his ghost is an enormous jerk.)

Ah, poor Brandi! While I'd like to give her a good life, that very poor, expanding family, headed by such a nice and not-that-bright mother and with the only income coming from the criminal job of the just-as-nice and easily led oldest son...well, in my current game, they were asking to be exploited. They're being held hostage by wanted fugitive Consort Capp (who hates the trailer, but reasons nobody's going to look for him there!), Dustin just lost his job, Brandi is everyone's servant, and pretty soon she and Dustin will also be Consort's main food supply, since he just got turned into a vampire and I have a mod that enables them to feed -- and kill -- with their bites, without turning the victim into a vampire.

Back in basegame-only, she and Nina Caliente fell in love, got married, and ended up with seven boys between them -- Brandi's three, three adopted by the couple (the one adopted as a baby named George Washington Broke -- I wanted a girl to name Penny Broke!) and Nina's panicky "I'm running out of time, I want to have a baby of my own!" son from her affair with Don Lothario. They ended up rich and happy, despite the affair (and I didn't have romancemod or ACR then; Brandi just never caught on!).

If your game is anything like Weeds, you could always explain the third child by pretending she got pregnant by a corrupt mayor from Strangetown.

All I Can Say Is: She Did Not Marry Mort Goth (Or Whatever) IN My PleasantView Because I Sent Him To Strangetown In A Retirement Home.

Oh... when I first started playing the Sims and tried her family, I couldn't figure out why she kept throwing up all the time. Then I thought she got fat so I started making her work out a lot. Eventually I realized she was pregnant and felt like an idiot (not as much as when I couldn't figure out how to get my married couple to have a baby though). Later on I was looking at her memories and tried to figure out who the father was. I was unable to.

I just looked it up, and her highest interests are in fashion and sports, with travel, weather, entertainment, and money not far behind. On the other hand, she has no interest at all in work, and there's a lot of other stuff she's not too fond of. That might give you some ideas on what she'd like to do for work or as a hobby, if she hasn't already rolled a LTW or a hobby yet.

As others have suggested, her only connections outside her family are with the Caliente sisters, as almost-friends. On the surface they seem to have nothing in common, but Nina also loves sports, while Dina loves weather and entertainment. And all of them like fashion, travel, and money. So perhaps they can bond over that?

If you're playing a megahood with Apartment Life, how about introducing her to Timothy Riley and Vivian Cho? If she could somehow get in contact with them, I can see them all bonding over their shared troubles as widowed single parents. Same with Darren Dreamer, now that I think of it.

If you'd like to create Sims and mess around with the family trees*, how about reintroducing Skip's side of the family, from TS3 and having them work their way into Brandi's life? He had cousins named Trigger and Susie (who were also raised by a widowed father) and a sister named Ruby, but there's no hint of them existing in TS2. If Ruby's still alive, surely she must be wondering what her little brother's up to? Chances are that most of them would be old or dead by TS2, but maybe their kids could get involved if you're willing to make up said kids.

(* Question: Adding onto Skip's family tree shouldn't cause any problems in the game, should it? I can't see how it might be a problem unless for whatever reason Skip's parents don't exist at all in a particular copy of Pleasantview -- I forgot if Tarlia's cleaned version does that -- but on the other hand there are a lot of harmless things that look innocent on the surface.)

But all that said, I don't recall ever doing much with her, though, sorry to say.

In my game, I usually have her find work after she gives birth to little Skip Jr. or Cynthia, and give her a makeover. Her priorities are just to raise the kids up. Beyond that, I view her story as done. I have no interest in her re-marrying and having more kids; three is enough

I've played her a number of times; often she remains sweet but poor, lazy, and unhappy. Dustin continues to be a bad boy; sometimes he brings his latest "fling" into the house, where Brandy does a lame job of raising his children. Then I would feel sorry for the younger kids and let them go to college, or even "go live with" someone else.
I've also played her where she sort of "wises up", and marries someone with money, even if they didn't have perfect chemistry, as long as he was nice to the kids. Which means he's a Family sim, which means more babies. The lot is actually large enough to build a nice 2-story house for everyone. And it's fun to have a "Father knows Best" house to play, where he plays catch with the kids, and she learns that cleaning the house is not that bad.
Now I want to go play them!