Cousincest, or "How to get around the game's family ties in three easy steps."

[strangetomato]

Remember this post about Audrey Broke and Alonzo Burb in my last version of Pleasantview? A helpful anon recently pointed out (via Formspring - feel free to ask me a question, if ya wanna) that they're actually related. Audrey is the daughter of Daniel Pleasant and Kaylynn Langerak and Alonzo is the son of John and Jennifer Burb, which makes them... wait for it... FIRST cousins. Eeep! That's a little close for comfort.

It's funny I didn't pick up on it, but I can always blame it on the fact that adoption erases the old family tree in favour of the adopted family's. Audrey was not longer linked to Daniel, so the relationship didn't show up. And in story terms, they probably wouldn't have known about it either, so it really could have happened. It certainly creates some drama, in true Pleasantview fashion.

It won't be an issue anymore, since I didn't clone off those two for the uberhood (I stuck to the essential characters only), so there'll be an Audrey and Alonzo (I'll reuse the names), but they probably won't be dating this time.

Comments

[sphynxed.livejournal.com]

That was me. :P

I didn't really need to be anonymous, but I thought it might be odd posting on the original entry, seeing as the last comment was almost a year ago.

*continues to aggressively lurk*

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, everyone is anon on Formspring unless they have an account. I think the ability to post questions immediately, rather than having to sign up, is a what makes the site so much fun.

Thanks for pointing it out. It makes for an interesting story! ^_^

[kin-thalas.livejournal.com]

First cousins is no issue, genetically.

In some cultures it's even okay to get married to your uncle.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I know of people in my own life who are married to their second cousins, but not so much first. I'm sure it happens plenty.

When you think about it, it's not so related. A brother and sister may not even be alll that genetically similar (Daniel Pleasant and Jennifer Burb don't seem that similar, for example), and even if they were twins with identical DNA, the first cousins would only share 50% of their DNA. In reality, it'd probably be less than 25% in a first cousin.

I think my own reaction to this is a little stronger than most would be, because I don't have siblings and I grew up with my first cousins like their were my brothers and sister. For me, in a close-knit family, it's way too close. If it were someone you hardly knew, it'd be a different thing entirely.

[alma70.livejournal.com]

First cousins can get married in Sweden so I see no problem with that. There's, as far as I know, not likely to be any genetic problems having kids in the real world so why in the sims world?

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I don't even know if it's legal for them to get married or not here, because I don't know of any examples.

I didn't mean to sound judgemental about it. It's just a cultural thing, and my own family is very close-knit, so my first cousins feel more like siblings to me.

[alma70.livejournal.com]

I don't think that you sounded judgemental at all and even though I hardly know most of my cousins, I can't imagine having any kind of romantic relationship with them since I KNOW that they're my cousins.
I was just trying to clarify that it's not illegal here, just not very common (or accepted).

[curiousb.livejournal.com]

I believe that first-cousin marriage is also legal in the UK, and actually I've often wished that the game would allow it, as I rapidly run out of partners for my Sims since my own rules mean that I don't allow them to marry NPCs, Townies, etc. ;)

In the real world I think there is a very slightly higher risk of genetic abnormalities in children born to first cousins, but no more so than for children born to older mothers, for example.

And don't worry, you don't sound judgemental at all - it's just one of those cultural differences!

[dinuriel.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if the creators meant for this to be possible or not, but if you use the Quick Relations function of InSim to make two related Sims love or even just crush on each other, all the romantic interactions will be enabled between those two Sims, including the commitment proposals and "Try for baby". You don't even need to cut the family ties or anything.

It can be useful for storytelling--like if you're doing a story set in a time/place where people might have married their cousins, or even if you just need a pose like a teenage girl cuddling on the couch with her dad or something.

Im resurecting my Ripp Grunt

[(Anonymous)]

It took me a year to read 3 years of posts and im loving SHWC please oh please get another update sometime soon please I cant wait to see what happens with Ripp Johnny and Ophelia. its so weird because in my strangetown story i had Ripp die at the hands of olive on ophelias birthday before he even reached young adulthood and so completely missed his story line potential and am now kicking myself in the A double snakes. but you are definately an inspiration your writing talent is beyond this world and I just thought id give praise where praise is due. From a well intrigued fan.

Going off topic slightly here

[soniabigcheese.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I've found something that may/may not interest you. Was looking around old Sims 2 videos on youtube and found this little nugget.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUqsJkW5BZw

Check out the guy at the end after the credits .... Do you think Ripp is moonlighting under a different guise in his spare time .... as a red head too?

Unless it's me, having one of those 'look, I see Ripp Grunt in everything' modes ROFL