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

[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!