Fangs For The Memories

Welcome back, everybody! Not sure how it is in your necks of the woods, but I'm enjoying yet another not-so-lovely rainy day out here. Pretty sick of the rain by now, especially since if it keeps up till tomorrow, that will mark yet another softball game rained out, and I'm really wanting to play (our first game was rained out as well, I was pretty bummed). I'm also not a fan of the rain because while I no longer live in the crappy apartment I used to complain about so much here, I do rent a house now that has a basement that tends to flood every time we get any kind of rain, and of that I am definitely not a fan...

I'm a fan of the unusual, thus, it's easy for me to focus a lot on stuff that I consider "weird", and more or less ignore mundane "normal" stuff. That's why I've always been such a fan of weird sims like the zombies from TS1, and the werewolves, aliens, zombies, and vampires from TS2. I've made a great effort not to include too much of that in the regular Monkeesim neighborhood, but not a perfect effort, because the vampire population keeps growing (while the werewolves have increased a little, but not nearly as much). Thus far, most of the vampire and werewolf residences have been located in an obscure part of town. What happens when we move the Everdark vampire family smack dab in the middle of town?



A house only a vampire could love...
Yes, previously, the Everdark home was just a crypt with four coffins, a phone, and not much else, and the family had to rely totally upon community lots for hygiene, food, and other needs. That pretty much sucked. Even vampires deserve better than that. When we join the family now, we find their new digs to be much more hip than the old crypt they once lived in. It even features a hot tub right in the middle of the main room, just like all good homes should. Finding themselves in a much more domestic setting got the family members thinking about stuff like marriage and children and all the things most ordinary sims think about sooner or later, and it wasn't long before a proposal was made…



Kyle: "Dude, will you marry me?"
That's just a joke. There WAS a proposal made, but it was actually made by Nicholas (the guy in the middle) to Melyssa (the gal in the middle). Kyle is just congratulating Nicholas on his engagement in the pic above. It wasn't long after that Kyle decided to take the plunge himself, and proposed to Kali. I'm sure relationships between vampires and non-vampires are possible and all, heaven knows there are plenty of werewolves in town in relationships with normal sims, but the convenience of vampires being engaged to other vampires can't be denied, since their schedules match perfectly. It took a little bit for everyone to get used to having stuff to do around the house besides crying over tombstones (though that was still an option), but it wasn't long before Kali was busy trying to boost her logic skills, while Melyssa worked on mastering the whole cooking thing.



Kali: "Hey, you just glopped macaroni on the board again!"
I can understand Melyssa pursuing the whole cooking thing, since it serves a purpose within the household, but the logic points Kali was busy earning were basically good for nothing as long as she wasn't able to hold down a normal job (I've never actually had one of my vampires get a job, but I imagine there are some problems if they get stuck on the day shift). I guess there's the possibility that she just enjoyed playing chess and that's why she was doing it, but why would someone want to play chess when there are so many more exciting games out there (like TS2)? As a side note, I really like the TV area in the new Everdark house - it's the perfect setup for folks who simply can't agree on what show to watch…



Melyssa: "Why do they always have to ruin perfectly good red meat by cooking it?"
Eventually, Melyssa decided she'd learned all she needed to know about cooking, which wasn't very much. However, vampires don't get hungry very often, and as long as it's night time, even if their hunger need isn't full, it still doesn't get depleted, so elaborate meals didn't seem like much of a priority around the house. Melyssa noticed (somehow, despite the lack of windows in the house) Heath King, the DJ she bit because she didn't like his hair, walking past the house, and decided to greet him. It's the least she could do after turning him into a creature of the night without his permission. Heath seemed to have gotten over that whole incident, and was more than happy to chat with Melyssa. He's either gotten over it, or has the hots for Melyssa, which won't do him much good since she's engaged now.



Heath: "Love the shoes, babe..."
Heath is an unusual case in that most of the time, anyone who's not a member of the Witte or Everdark family who becomes a vampire is give a potion shortly after and "persuaded" to cure themselves. Otherwise, the population of random vampires on community lots begins to grow, and the chances of sims I'm not controlling and don't want getting bitten being bitten increases greatly. Everyone agreed that Heath looked much better with his vampire hair than he had with his DJ hair, and there didn't seem to be an urgent need to change him back. While the family was enjoying the location and accommodations of the new house, Melyssa was dissatisfied with the atmosphere outside. The weather at the crypt had always been snowy and gloomy, and there didn't seem to be any reason for that to change just because they'd moved to a different lot.



Melyssa: "I just hope I don't accidentally fry someone with lightning!"
Personally, the winter season in TS2 is my least favorite, but after seeing great films like "The Fearless Vampire Killers", I realize that the snowy atmosphere is a must for any would-be vampire's property, even if they're not cool enough to live in a castle like Alfred Witte. Of course, the down side is that while snow may provide a cool, dreary look, it also reduces the amount of time sims can spend outside (especially when they're wearing open-toed shoes like Melyssa). Good thing the new Everdark home has plenty to do indoors. Of course, even a great home will always have some little thing wrong with it, like the fact that the new house happened to be haunted by not one but four ghosts. That's what you get when you use tombstones as lawn decorations I guess.



Kyle: "Will you please just ignore the ninja ghost? I'm trying to tell you how much I love you!"
The Everdarks have always been a fun loving bunch, more so even than a lot of the other families in the Monkeesim neighborhood, they've just gotten a lot less exposure because for one thing, they're vampires, and that's a little weird, and for another, they arrived in the neighborhood later in time than families like the Andrews, Daniels, and Hartmans, and the "older" families are the ones I'm usually tempted to spend the most time focusing on. Well, despite their somewhat reclusive existence, the family decided it was time to start being good neighbors and invite some folks over for a little housewarming bash. They invited Alfred and Zondra Witte and Heath King, which isn't that surprising, since they're vampires as well, but they also managed to get Amy Andrews to show up, though she was the only normal sim to accept the invitation (she only knew the family because of their frequent visits to Radio Shock).



Nicholas: "You guys ready for a little 'Spin the Bottle'..?"
It had been a while since the Witte family had gotten together with the Everdarks. If you recall, the Everdarks became vampires to begin with after coming to town and staying in Alfred's castle, where they were systematically bitten and transformed one after the other, and Alfred was forced to kick them out because their rowdy behavior was disturbing his otherwise peaceful life in his castle. Both parties had a reason to dislike one another, but time heals all wounds (including the little puncture holes on the necks of the Everdarks), and the desire to hang out with other bloodsuckers was eventually greater than whatever grudge the two families might have had against each other.



Nicholas: "So, Alfred…they tell us you really know how to Smustle!"
The family and the guests spent quite a bit of time just dancing. I guess when you spend half your day crammed inside a coffin, you really have to do something to stretch those achy limbs, and flying through the night as a bat to terrorize the local villagers is just not enough). Lucius Wolfenstein, "butler" to Alfred and Zondra, had come to the party as well as the resident werewolf (a role once filled mainly by Tommy Wolf, but less and less as time goes on). Lucius and Tommy have never gotten along, probably because Tommy was responsible for Lucius contracting lycanthropy to begin with, and I guess some folks don't like morphing into a hairy fleabag and being too energetic to sleep at night.



Kali: "Sorry, but there's someone in the bathroom. Can't you just use a bush outside?"
Sometimes I feel a little sorry for Lucius. I mean, he was more or less created just to do chores at Alfred's castle since Alfred and Zondra can't do anything themselves during the day, and his very first experience in the Monkeesim neighborhood was to be placed as a resident in Tommy Wolf's house, savaged, and kicked out immediately after to be moved into castle Witte. No wonder he's such a bitter grouch (not that the natural decay of werewolves' "niceness" points doesn't have something to do with that). To top it all off, his bedroom in the castle is the size of a closet. On the bright side of things, Lucius and Alfred are pretty good friends (despite his unofficial "servant" status), and they always enjoy chatting together when Lucius isn't scrubbing toilets or checking himself for fleas.



Alfred: "…whereas the cattle market has witnessed exponential growth due to increases in blah blah blah..."
It's kind of funny to see some of the stuff that Alfred and Lucius talk about, when you consider the fact that the Witte castle has no TV or internet or easy source of information. Sure, there's a newspaper delivered daily, but I've never seen a single one actually brought inside and read. I guess Alfred is technically a senior citizen, and did have plenty of exposure to the "normal" world before Amy Andrews bit him and started the whole vampire thing, but his knowledge of current events will still seem to be a bit limited. Anyhow, while vampires may be different in a lot of ways from regular sims, their basic interests seem to be the same. Despite the variety of attractions in the new house (TV, chess board, dart board, and so forth), the hot tub was filled to capacity at every possible moment.



Kyle: "It's not that I don't like the sun itself, I just think the fact that it means almost instant death kind of sucks..."
The new Everdark home appeared to be a much more appealing party spot than the crypt they originally lived in, and while the family never actually threw a party when they lived in the crypt, I feel safe making that assumption since there were no amusement items of any sort in the crypt (and you can only talk to people for so long before it gets dreadfully boring). Well, most folks seemed to think it was a great party spot. Amy Andrews took off before the party was even over and nobody noticed her leave. Despite that, things were really hopping, and the Everdarks seemed on their way to a most excellent party score. Of course, well all know what that means. Yes, due to the late hour and the fact that everyone was having way too much fun, that butthead of a cop showed up to break things up and send everyone packing.



Officer: "…and section 27-43-11 of the state code clearly states that you can't bury people in your front yard!"
It's always pained me that you can't do anything to successfully keep the officer from entering your house and ending things, short of deleting him (I'm not a social miscreant in real life, but I think it would be cool if sims could wrestle the cops like the burglars do and make them go away). Dawn was only a few hours away, though, and unlike regular sims who could keep it going straight on into the next day, the health risks associated with doing so for the Everdarks were just too great. Anyway, that's pretty much a wrap for now. So the family has a new house, but still no steady source of income…how to solve such a knotty problem? We'll find out next time, as we also check in and see how Rinoa is doing since the last time we visited. Be there, you won't want to miss it!