Week Four Part Ten: Sim State Dormitory + Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House

Taking my cue from several other Prosperity bloggers, I decided a while back to start taking portraits of each family at the beginning of a round. Now you all finally get to start reaping the fruits of my labor. 

So, the new college students, from left:

Jeannie Dejackome, 17 years old, Aspiration: Knowledge, LTW: Become Head of SCIA, Astrological sign: Aquarius

Mildred "Millie" Landgraab, 20 years old, Aspiration: Knowledge, LTW: Become Education Minister, Astrological sign: Gemini

Veronica Whitfill, 21 years old, Aspiration: Fortune, LTW: Become Prestidigitator, Astrological sign: Libra

Rishell Whitfill, 21 years old, Aspiration: Knowledge, LTW: Max All Skills, Astrological sign: Pisces

Gretchen Dejackome, 17 years old, Aspiration: Knowledge, LTW: Become Criminal Mastermind, Astrological sign: Aries 

You can really see the results of the wave of Knowledge teens I got a while back. Also, I think it's funny that sisters Jeannie and Gretchen have such opposite Lifetime Wants. Also also, I think it's funny that of the five girls in "The Whitfill Household", four will have the last name Whitfill at some point in their lives. But I get ahead of myself.

On to the story:

The students of Sim State University were not immune to the Great Flu Epidemic of '32. Millie Landgraab and Rishell Whitfill had to spend most of their first semester in bed.

Veronica didn't get sick, so she started work on getting them into the Greek House. Timothy Seifert was delighted to admit her.

Rishell followed in her sister's footsteps as soon as she had a clean bill of health.

Then all five girls had to hit the books to make up for lost time so nobody would do poorly on finals.

(Actually, Gretchen had the college meter glitch. So I kept them studying as long as possible as extra insurance. Fun fact: The Sim who had that glitch first was Gretchen's future husband, Donte Whitfill. I am almost looking forward to seeing if their children get it.)

The next semester, Jeannie managed to get into the Greek House.

As soon as everybody got back from their first day of classes, the girls all went clothes shopping.

The next night, Gretchen asked Timothy if she could join ZZE. He said yes, of course.

Millie took the opportunity to ask as well.

The night after that, Rishell managed to get into the Secret Society. (There are no real secrets in a group of five girls.)

Meanwhile, back at the Greek House...

Jeannie found herself thinking more and more about Timothy Seifert. She made sure to call him from time to time to make sure he didn't get too lonely in that big old house all by himself.

Side note: As a result of befriending all the girls, Timothy was Big Sim on Campus by the time I got back to him.

Near the end of the semester, Timothy invited Jeannie over, saying he needed some advice on fixing the place up before all the girls moved in. Jeannie never made it past the living room, however.

The first morning of the fall semester, Timothy welcomed everyone with pancakes and a rousing discussion of robots.

Don't forget, Timothy is also a Knowledge Sim.

Jeannie, Veronica, and Millie were all inducted into the Secret Society that semester.

Look, it's a Landgraab in the Landgrabb Society! (Relatedly, EA Games needed a better copy editor.)

Living under the same roof did nothing to dull Jeannie's fascination with Timothy, or his with her.

Near the end of their sophomore year, Timothy decided that he never wanted to live apart from Jeannie again and asked her to do him the honor of becoming Mrs. Seifert. Jeannie agreed, as long as she could hyphenate her name.

Something I might as well note here as anywhere else: I have the women take their husband's last names, as Prosperity rules dictate. However, on this blog I refer to married women by whatever name seems to best fit their personality and background.

These last two pictures really were a semester apart, by the way. Jeannie liked that drum kit almost as much as she liked Timothy.

Also during their sophomore year: Jeannie and Gretchen made Big Sim on Campus; Gretchen made Secret Society.

Although there was only one in-house couple at ZZE, love was in the air for some other residents. Millie invited over her old friend Blake Whitfill and they discovered new feelings for one another. Unfortunately, he had the flu, so he couldn't stay long.

Blake's brother Donte stayed longer, at Gretchen's invitation.

Meanwhile, Rishell Whitfill invited her friend Ryker Owens to pledge. She wasn't interested in him that way, but he was a great guy and Tim was kind of overwhelmed by all the estrogen in the house.

Ryker Owens
S2 skin, blond hair, light blue eyes
Aspiration: Fortune
LTW: Become a Prestidigitator (because you can NEVER have too many of those...)
Astrological sign: ???
 

Around the time Ryker pledged, Millie came down with the flu for the second time in her college career, probably thanks to Blake. Gretchen also got sick. She blamed it on Millie, but Millie said she'd probably picked up some germs while sharing spit with Donte.

Other junior year accomplishments: Rishell makes Big Sim on Campus.

By the fall of their senior year, Millie and Gretchen were back to full health. They used some of their newfound energy to play videogames late at night. Ryker, who had just moved in, had a blast watching them.

Later that semester, the members of ZZE had a toga party. Nobody felt like singing a folk song, so instead they formed a rock band, The Angry Tribbles. Their first performance, Jeannie was on lead guitar, Gretchen on bass, Rishell on drums, and Timothy on piano.

Most awkward picture ever: Happily married mother of 4 Joan Pons is in the hot tub NAKED with Ryker Owens. (Ryker had the decency to wear his swimsuit.) Ryker just nonchalantly carried on a conversation. Nothing untoward happened; Joan just does that because she has 10 outgoing points. It's still disturbing.

Thanks to his Greek House connections, Ryker was able to make it into the Secret Society later that semester.

In no time at all, the older members were getting ready to graduate. All of them managed a 4.0.

You can see Millie's scary eyebrows in this shot. Her two younger sisters have them too. Usually they're covered by hair.

The Angry Tribbles held a parting concert (with Timothy on lead guitar, Veronica on bass, Millie on drums, and Gretchen on piano) before packing up their things and heading back to Prosperity Plains (Timothy, the only non-native, was more than willing to move for Jeannie), leaving ZZE Greek House in Ryker's capable hands.

Now it's finally time for some Greek House pictures!

The ground floor. The kitchen (on the right) was part of the original massive renovation near the beginning of Week Three, during which I knocked down almost all the walls in the area to the left of the stairs. The pool (in back) and hot tub/bar area (far left) were added at the end of Week Three.

The red sports car almost never leaves the driveway; it's there mostly so the students don't clog their wants panels with "buy a car." It's also useful for acheiving Dream Date status, if you take my meaning.

The second floor was renovated the most during Week Four. If you have Sims 2 University, you've almost certainly seen this house (it's 80 Crumplebottom Road at SSU and it's also available in the Lots and Houses bin in the regular neighborhood). So you'll know that in the original design there were two bedrooms just to the left of the stairs.

At the beginning of Week Three, I added the two bedrooms and bathroom to the right of the stairs, for a total of four bedrooms and two bathrooms. During Week Four, I knocked out the two original bedrooms and added on a wing over the hot tub wing downstairs, so there's a huge open study/hang out area. (The musical instruments used to be in the open area downstairs; now that's a dancing/mingle area for when they throw parties.) Then I added two bedrooms and a bathroom over the pool wing in back to make up for knocking down the old ones.

Here's the attic area, also known as the computer lab. The wing with all the desks was added at the beginning of Week Three. That's also when I knocked down the wall to the little room where the black desk is in this picture. (When I had a bed up in the attic, it was useful to have the noisy computer behind a closed door.) Notice that there is a mini-fridge and a trashcan so that term-paper-writing Simmies can grab a snack and throw away the wrapper without leaving the computer lab.

The attic bathroom is the only room in this entire house that remains unchanged...for now. 

And, last but not least, the outside. It's becoming a cumbersome-looking house, but we'll leave aesthetics for the main neighborhood, right?

Week Four Part Nine: Lothlorien

Jihoon Whitfill and Francine Riedmayer barely let the ink dry on their college diplomas before they were signing a marriage license.

Due to the Great Flu Epidemic of '32, Jihoon and Francine chose to only have the 2 necessary witnesses to their marriage. They invited over Darius Kules and his fiancee Elise Kalson, had the ceremony, and called it a day.

Random portrait spam: The Whitfill kids are not going to have good luck with noses.

This is not the most flattering picture of Francine, but I think it's the only picture I have that shows the front of her dress.

Jihoon is not much to look at. He's a pretty sweet guy, though.

Jihoon got a job as a high school teacher; Fran got a low-level job as a dancer. It was far from her goal of ballet, but at least she was building a reputation.

The newlyweds' favorite activity was eating dinner together on the patio after Fran got home from work. Jihoon often remarked how lucky he was to have married a woman like her.

To keep herself from going mad with boredom, Fran spent a lot of time honing her skills. Since Jihoon wasn't much of a chess player, she often played against herself.

Jihoon, by contrast, found his job quite fulfilling. However, he soon moved from high school to college in order to get better pay and more flexible hours.

I love this picture because it looks like Jihoon is confused about getting promoted. (He's actually reacting to the rain.)

The promotion was especially timely since at about the same time Fran discovered that she was pregnant and would need to take time off from dancing professionally.

Although the pregnancy slowed her down, Fran made sure to keep working on her skills.

Just a month before her parents' fifth wedding anniversary, baby Lauren made her way into the world. She strongly resembled her father, with very pale skin, brown hair, and dark blue eyes.

I spent way too much time making this. She's the first Gen 3 baby, she should get something special, right?

After Lauren's birth, Fran felt extraordinarily fulfilled, even though her career was going rather poorly and her lifelong dream of being a ballerina seemed very far off. Jihoon was happy that his wife seemed so happy.

Francine was the very first Sim in Prosperity Plains to fill the Lifetime Aspiration Meter--and without even fulfilling her Lifetime Want!

Shortly after Lauren's birth, Francine went back to work. Sometimes, she would invite Elise Kules over for dinner on the patio. They all loved to reminisce about their college days.

But they also loved to talk about more recent happenings. Not long after Lauren was born, Elise had given birth to a son, Silas.

Fran made sure that she did not get too wrapped up in her career--Lauren was growing up fast.

I really like this picture of Francine, though it's not very flattering to Lauren, who did indeed get a rather weird-looking nose.

Lauren got a dollhouse for her second birthday; Fran enjoyed showing her daughter how to play with the dolls--Lauren's first instinct was to eat them!

Jihoon also made sure to stay involved in his daughter's life. He had spent his own early years in an orphanage and was very glad to be able to provide a better life for little Lauren.

Given how much they enjoyed their first child, it seemed only logical to try for another. So they did, and succeeded when Lauren was three years old.

This is what the downstairs looked like at the end of the week. I want somebody to write me a hack that makes the Sims eat outside when the weather is nice and inside when it's raining or cold. My Sims always seem to choose the wrong thing.

The upstairs has a very open floorplan, mostly because they can't afford walls yet.

And the outside. I'm actually really proud of how this house turned out.

As I mentioned above, Lauren is officially the first member of Generation 3. Francine is Generation 1, having been the only CAS toddler. Jihoon is Generation 2, having been adopted as a child by a CAS elder. According to the Prosperity Challenge rules, this makes Lauren Generation 3. (She will likely marry Silas Kules, who is Generation 2--son of a CAS teen and an ex-townie--and their children will be Generation 4. See how this works?) I get a kick out of the fact that the youngest member of Generation 1 gave birth to the oldest member of Generation 3.