Thursday 25 February 2010

Monster hospital

Round 25: Spring 2021
Filippo Moretti is 66, Emil Collins is 49, Anna is 43, Nathan is 11 and Hope is 10.
(Arianna Weaver is 66, Nick Moretti is 18)

Anna is never quite sure what to do when people are blubbering. She could comfort them but it feels so insincere when she does it. Even when her own sister was going through her separation, she was always at a loss for what to say.



It's especially awkward for her when they're sobbing about people she didn't even like, like Maria. Anna was not Maria's biggest fan and as she's not sure she could muster up any kind words about the woman, she's biting her tongue. For once.

However, everyone else in the house is still feeling the loss, even now, six months later.

Even Emil was unusually quiet sometimes.

No one felt it more than Filippo. It wasn't easy to get used to sleeping alone again, after more than 35 years of marriage.

Now, Filippo's true joy in life is his grandchildren. Including Nathan and Hope (who were really his step-grandchildren, not that he ever bothered to make the distinction), he had 13 in all.

Even so, he wouldn't mind if he had a few more. He wasn't planning on getting pushy about it, even though that was usually Maria's tack, but if one of his kids blessed him with another grandchild, he'd be ecstatic.

Filippo just genuinely enjoys spending time with his grandchildren, especially Nick. Maybe it was because Nick was Filippo's first grandchild, or maybe it was the mere fact that he was the oldest, meaning they could talk in a way Filippo couldn't with the younger ones. Or perhaps it was because being away at university didn't stop Nick from faithfully visiting every single week, just as always. Filippo would never admit out loud that he had a favourite but he did.

Hope and Nathan are 10 and 11 and on the cusp of puberty, so the house will soon be overrun by hormones. For now though, things are fairly calm for the Collins kids.

Already, their differences are becoming apparent. Nathan has already grown out of Hope's silly talk about aliens and wizards, though he still listens patiently.

Nathan's main interest is school. He's very excited to be starting high school next year.

Emil and Anna were already wondering how Nathan would cope at high school, with all of the "big kids". He was lively enough at home with his family but tended to be a little withdrawn around anyone else.

Hope is getting a little ahead of herself about starting high school but she was excited too.

Hope is still very much a little girl. She still takes naps with her grandpa in the afternoon...

...and her favourite toy was still her doll house.

Filippo has tried to get Hope and Nathan interested in the vegetable patch he's started but neither child has even set foot out there yet.

Before he started, Filippo visited his sister Arianna for some advice. Filippo had somehow managed to grow up on a farm and not learn a thing about gardening but it was something Maria had always toyed with doing, so he thought he'd start a little patch in her memory. Seeing Arianna had been running the family farm for decades now, she must know a little bit about it.

Filippo's tomatoes still haven't come in but the Sullivan Garden Club was most interested in visiting for an inspection.

Filippo was glad when they finally thought his garden was suitable enough to grant him a membership.

It's a good thing Filippo was so content with the grandkids he had, because it doesn't look like he'll be getting any more soon, at least not from Emil and Anna.

At 43, Anna doesn't feel like there's a huge chance of her getting pregnant. But every time she thinks about forgetting about the hassle of birth control, the thought of Araminta Romilly having a baby at 51 comes to mind. That settles it. Anna will continue to deal with the inconvenience of contraception until she's well and truly sure pregnancy is no longer even the remotest of possibilities!

Extras:

I don't know if I've ever seen Anna have a conversation with anyone (except maybe Emil) where the other Sim isn't left completely exasperated! She just sits there chatting quite calmly but no one seems to react to whatever she's saying very positively - it's really funny to watch. Evan and Filippo both have 10 nice points and Anna has 1, and I wonder if that has something to do with it, as well as perhaps clashing interests.

Notes:
  • Title is from Monster Hospital by Metric.
  • Geez, with the blubbering! I don't usually get a lot of crying when my elders die. Filippo looks sad even in his sleep!
  • I just noticed that Nathan only has one outgoing point! I don't know how Emil and Anna (he has 7 outgoing points, she has 10) produced this child but I'm interested to see what he turns out like as he gets older. He has a really similar personality to Eliot Lane, so I'm thinking the one nice point might not play out as actual meanness, like it does with my more outgoing mean Sims. I think of those sorts of Sims as a just a little bit anti-social, as opposed to mean.
  • Emil finally rolled away the baby want! He seems to have passed it onto Filippo though, who wants 20 grandchildren and another baby. Um, yeah...neither of those things will be happening!

13 comments:

  1. LOL Filippo, having another child of your own will not replace Maria... Though hey, it's possible, Gary Busey (actor) just had his third child, and he's 65. Maybe this is Filippo's inspiration. ;)

    Anna really does seem exasperate people, doesn't she? Those pictures are hilarious.

    How did you get Emil to console Filippo like that?

    I'm looking forward to Nathan and Hope being teenagers. I really like look of the Carmody girls.

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  2. For some reason your title reminded me of Avenue Q. At least Anna bit her tongue, yay for her. Ugh, don't you hate it when conversations go downhill. I have quite a few sims who seem to have horrible conversations all the time.

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  3. LOL, I really like Anna. I don't know why, I just do. I always tend to like mean sims though. ;)

    My sims seem to blubber endlessly for lost elders. Sigh!

    Poor Fillipo! At least he's found something to distract himself with. It always makes me sad when a very close couple is separated by death. Especially when the one left behind mopes around. :(

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  4. lol @ Mao! You know what, I'm glad I'm not the only one. I have a soft spot for the mean ones cause so many of my sims are mean too. I think they're usually amusing. Like those last shots of Anna having a conversation with everyone looking so shocked, lol!

    And Fillip does look horribly sad. Poor guy!

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  5. Thanks, everybody!

    Maisie, I think that's probably the only time I'll ever hear Filippo compared to Gary Busey, LOL!

    Emil is consoling Filippo with the help of Paul's Reaction Tester. I have it as a separate object in my downloads but I'm not sure where I got it from. I think you can spawn it off with the testingcheatsenabled cheat as well though. There's an option Do Consolable Cry and then any other Sim will get the Console option. The only time I've seen it happening naturally was when Tatiana had her miscarriage.

    I think Nathan will look more like Emil, only freckled with lighter hair but Hope is pretty much Anna's clone, so she's a true Carmody girl!

    Apple Valley, well, there's a Monster School in Avenue Q, right? It only follows that there'd also be a Monster Hospital!

    I normally hate it when conversations go downhill but I just find it funny with Anna. It just seems like that's how her conversations should go - she's not very tactful. I'm not very concerned about other Sims liking her a lot, although she's inexplicably has quite a lot of friends!

    Mao, I love Anna too, she's so much fun. She's Betsy's clone but they really are quite different, somehow!

    And I know...it's so depressing when they cry! It melts my little black heart!

    Lunar, I have a ton of mean Sims too! They do tend to be a lot of fun, although not all of them act mean, at least in my game.

    Poor Filippo. Even before she aged to elder, I knew Maria would die before he did but it's still sad. They were together a loooong time!

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  6. Loosing your wife is never easy, so it's understandable that Filippo is sad, even after 6 months I guess. It's a good thing he found something to do.
    When Filippo managed to grow up on a farm and never learned any gardening at it, I don't think he can expect his grandchildren to show some intrest, maybe one day they start at it, just like him.

    I'm exited to see Nathan and Hope as teens. I wonder how Nathan will do in life, with one nice and one outgoing point!

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  7. Mean sims are fun! I think Nathan will be more of an introvert than a real meanie though with that 1 outgoing point.

    Filippo wants another child? Well it could happen. The late actor Anthony Quinn was about 80 when his youngest child was born! So you better watch out for Filippo LOL

    I just can't believe Hope and Nathan are so close to puberty! Your sims are making me feel old ;)

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  8. Tanja, ah, yes, that's a good point about Filippo and his gardening! Maybe Nathan and Hope will get into it when they're in their 60s!

    We should see Nathan as a teen in just a couple of days, so not long to go! As for how he'll go with one outgoing and one nice point...well, Eliot has done okay for himself, so Nathan might do alright. ;)

    Sari, yeah, I think of the shy mean Sims as something closer to anti-social than truly mean. That's how they seem to act as well. They're not outgoing enough to be outright hostile, usually!

    If Filippo did have another baby, he wouldn't even be the oldest dad ever in Sullivan (that would be Anton Collins, Emil's dad), so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility, I guess! Filippo has 3 bolts with a few of my girls. I think they're all married Family Sims, but theoretically, they could call him over for a booty call and get knocked up!

    My Sims are making me feel old! Nathan was one of the first kids born after I switched to this calendar system and I can't believe I've been at it so long now!

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  9. Mean sims add a lot of interest and amusement--I love to see what happens when they "share interests."

    That's an interesting distinction between extroverted and introverted mean. It totally makes sense.

    It is odd how some sims hardly mourn and others seem inconsolable, and it is not just relationship level. I wonder what it is.

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  10. I can't see why anybody would hate Maria...rest her soul. LOL! I love this family.

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  11. Simmington, well, the feeling was more than mutual between Anna and Maria! Maria thought Anna was a lazy good-for-nothing (which she was, really, for many years) and Anna thought Maria was an old nag. Maria did like to nag, though she did it out of love, generally.

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  12. I don't care for Anna, though, LOL...I guess that's what it is. I felt Maria's problem with Anna was justified. And you already know how much I loved Maria. :) Gosh, I love this game and the feelings it evokes. hahaha.

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  13. Ha, me too! I love that we can all feel so strongly about these little people who are really just pixels on a screen.

    I loved Maria and I love Anna, so predictably I think Maria and Anna were both justified in disliking each other. They're just two people who really shouldn't have lived together. Maria was relentless in her quest for more grandchildren but Anna never made much of an effort to build a bridge either.

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