The Freakish Death of Gabe O'Mackey

They'd just cleaned up the wedding party when Samantha went into labor. The guests had all left and Jules was asleep. Up until that point, it had been the most romantic day of Gabe's life. If it weren't for those last few horrific moments, Gabe would have died the happiest he'd been in years.

Samantha had two babies, a boy and girl. The labor was fast, so she had them at home. The whole was over faster than Gabe could load a dishwasher. He wondered if Jules had been born that quickly, but couldn't remember. Samantha had given birth before, so after a few cries of pain, she calmly left the babies in the kitchen and went to the bedroom to plan a new outfit.

Gabe looked at the twins. What was wrong with their faces?!

"What do think of this dress?" Samantha skipped back into the kitchen, watching the skirt swish back and forth. "It's kind of retro, but I think it's really cute."

"You're... you're babies." The twins were on the floor, wrapped in blankets. They weren't crying. Just staring. Samantha was acting like they weren't even there, but all Gabe could do was stare right back at them.

The boy, Ethan, had a face twice as long as Emma's, his twin sister. His mouth looked like it was about to drop off his chin. Emma's cheeks were sunken in so far they were almost touching on the inside. Both of them had brown eyes that bugged out too far and blinked too often. Gabe struggled to understand just what he was looking at. Hadn't he heard of a rumor of a woman, out in some desert town, that had a baby with Death himself? No, that's ridiculous, he told himself. He'd met Samantha's ex-husband. These babies were human.

He took of his glasses and massaged his temples. Everything flooded Gabe's mind at the same time. Alexandra gone one morning, a cryptic note on her pillow: "I'm a pirate now. Arr." Jason's wild plant-wife, Rose. With leaves for hair and near constant thirst for water. And Daisy, Gabe's niece, at least sort of. A giggling human flower Rose claimed she spawned. And now these twins babies, barely human looking. It was all too much to handle.

He looked into Samantha's blue eyes. She was smiling, waiting for a compliment on her dress. He remembered the day they met like it was yesterday. Actually, it was yesterday. She had waddled into his office at the school, her first day teaching second grade. Pregnant, poor, and heartbroken from her recent divorce. She was trying to talk between sobs, something about "Peter's trampy whores" and "poor little Tommy," but Gabe was lost in her blue eyes. Blue like Alexandra's, but darker and sadder. They were living together by the end of the day, married the next.

Gabe wanted to tell her the dress was beautiful, that it brought out the blue in her eyes. But when he opened his mouth to say something,  one of the babies started to cry. And then Gabe was eaten alive by a swarm of flies.

Everyone is Dead

Riverblossom Hills just may be my favorite neighborhood, and the one I've played for the longest consecutive time. (I've spent more game time in Pleasantview, I'm sure, but that's with resetting it a bunch.) Most of the original sims have aged up and hula'd on over to the afterlife, so they've got quite the stories to tell. More than a few mysteriously died from random lightning strikes, fly attacks, and mysterious "disease." It's not like I enjoy killing sims (unless they are ugly, I'm looking at you Ottomas family). I just need to keep the population under control. Besides, if they are already elders, I don't consider cheating them to die of old age "murder." Whose to say Leod McGreggor didn't have high cholesterol? Sure his meals were all sparkly, but he always ate the entire plate. Why should he live longer than Sanjay Ramaswami, whose wife could barely cook? Burnt hot dogs aren't very filling, so he stayed pretty slim. What was he supposed to do, cook his own meals?

That was three servings worth of food, Leod.

Of all the original sims, only Xander Roth and Jacob Martin are still alive, both now elders. Of the binned sims that I placed into Riverblossom Hills, Gallagher Newson is still alive. So is Gabriella Newson Martin. Garrett Newson O'Mackey and Georgia Newson Roth are both alive and still adults, but getting really close to aging up. Tommy Ottomas is still alive, and Emma Ottomas (one of the freak-of-nature twins) just graduated from college. (She's in the showbiz career so I can get Dr Vu's Automated Cosmetic Surgeon and fix her face. Though, even with it, she's still got the guys lining up. But with those genes, she's not allowed to reproduce. She's a Romance sim, so it's not like she'd want to.) And yes, I did break my own rules and create a few custom sim families, and a couple of them are still around, but they don't count since no one cares.

Sims 2 Rules for Population Control

It doesn't take long for my Sims 2 neighborhoods to get a little out of control. I start out with six households, then everyone gets married and has affairs and woohoos like crazy. Kids grow up and move out. I download some new funky eye color and end up adding a bunch of new CAS sims. And then if I place the Newson orphans in the town, all those second generation kids are cousins. (This was a big problem with Riverblossom Hills, as you'll see. Everybody wants to marry a Newson.)

We are teh sexy. (Once we grow up. Let's not get creepy.)

It only takes about one generation for the population to grow out of control and I'm struggling to manage twelve or more overflowing households and eventually the neighborhood gets boring and I lose interest.

So I made some rules:

1. No Trying for Baby unless both sims have the "have a baby" want. (Unless it's Winter. Then only one sim has to want a baby. It is the "family" season, after all. And you gotta keep warm. No one wants to get back out of bed to get the birth control.)
2. No moving out until season 1, unless there's an abandoned house in the current season. This helps out with the next rule:
3. Keep all households in the same season. Everyone ages about the same and no one marries their sibling's grandkids. 
4. No creating new sims. Play only sims that already live in the neighborhood, or are in the bin. 
5. Sims can not marry NPCs. Obviously, this rule needs to be broken in neighborhoods like Veronaville or everyone will end up related.

Pretty simple. Of course, I often break these rules, but they do help keep the population in check. That, and Rodney's Death Creator. Population control is an important duty for any responsible SimGod. The power is yours! (This episode, by the way, was the one that caused my dad to ban my siblings and I from ever watching Captain Planet.)