I'm playing an oddball household I've assembled in Bridgeport, It's William Fangmann for those who know him, rescued/moved out from the ridiculous thing that is the Drama on TV Household that was holding him back, two former Role Sims I took a liking to, and one young but highly experienced KamaSimtra worker (from Riverview) who is now exploring other possibilities. William is carrying this strange household financially, he's doing very well in his law enforcement career, provided that the others learn how to cook, care for themselves without help, take care of his new 3-bedroom penthouse, and don't cause trouble (they never really do). The others are working on skills and their own development now, very slowly, and are grateful to have been given this great chance to start things over and in such a nice environment.
So one of the former Role Sims is coming home late from a very long day and finds an unfamiliar homeless sim lurking about in the shadows around the corner from the highrise building's entrance. There's a full moon so I figured it was a zombie, and maybe he was meant to be, but he didn't "zombify." Took me a couple of minutes, but then realized he was Ethan, a young looking YA (thought he was a teen at first in fact) homeless co-worker who had spawned a long time ago for the teen in a different Bridgeport household I had working part time after school at the Diner. Never really paid him much attention before, but now that I did, I liked him very much. He was friendly and happily engaged my tired sim in conversation outside. This newly "found" sim is not getting away from my game.
(Save), then (Save As), (Make extra sure the saves are good because certainly something is going to go wrong here.)
Ethan looked hungry. Their friendship really hadn't advanced far enough to invite him "over," but suddenly he ran away and into the apartment building, into the common area rec room to use the candy/soda machine. Well, that's where I wanted to get him in the first place! My more experienced charismatic household member came downstairs and instantly became good friends with Ethan. Couldn't arrange an Invite Over or Ask to Move In, but Ask to be Roommate came up socially and I thought, "He's an NPC already so why not?"
The other household members liked him a lot too, so I thought this was going to turn out great. After he had a proper meal and a bath, I watched Ethan while he was sleeping (yeah, I have issues, don't judge) and saw right on screen while he sprouted big blue fairy wings in his sleep. WTF? Fairies are fine, there's one in this household already, but that wasn't part of who I saw him as. MC to take the surprise occult status away. Much later I got a delayed SP notification that he had joined the fairies as a member, but I have no idea why that happened as I don't use the Personality modules to allow for that, so I just ignored the by then bogus notification.
Then his first name changed to Roscoe. I don't know why (yes, homeless NPCs just do this sometimes). I changed it back to Ethan, he didn't look like a Roscoe.
Then all of his facial sliders changed! Suddenly he had pointy ears, alien featured eyes (he's not an alien), a very different nose and jawline, uneven custom body part sliders all over the place, his body hair and eye color changed. I painstakingly remolded him in CAS. His head/facial hair, clothes, and traits had stayed intact.
The next day, as NPC roommates like to do, he adopted a puppy whom he then paid no attention to. Oh no, this household is overstuffed with 5 unpartnered sims in 3 bedrooms now, the living area is nice but not all that large, so the dog has to go. One look at the incredibly cute puppy and how friendly she was with the others not ignoring her and (sighs) okay, she stays. I fixed up her bed, food bowl, and toys down in the apartment building's common area for now and she seemed happy with that. She even went outside to pee all on her own, I've never seen a new puppy do that before without some guidance or training. Maybe she had a former owner prior to the shelter or wherever she magically came from. Or maybe she was born with the Neat trait, I forgot to check that.
Roscoe, I mean Ethan, had great traits but no skills at all. Since he was a Virtuoso with no musical skills, I had one of my sims gift him a guitar and there's already a cello in the apartment to practice on as William plays it. He was having a blast in his new home with his new friends though and did not get pushed to work at his part time Diner job the next evening as he should have. I used MC > Go to Work on him and he obeyed, for only for around 90 sim minutes as the game decided his shift, started late, should be over early.
When he emerged from work, he instantly became a selectable member of my household, no longer a Roommate. Well, guess that's what I wanted all along eventually, but I've never seen that happen all by itself before either. I can take over his development properly from there, now that I can control him myself.
So now (finally!) the questions all of this raises.
-- What's with the goofy name and CAS slider changes, does this happen to everyone when playing around with homeless NPCs and roommates?
-- Where in the world did the overnight occult status change come from?
-- Why/How did the sim become a selectable proper resident of my household without my even trying to make him one?
-- And, most importantly (but I doubt anyone can answer this accurately), what exactly is it that makes a sim who they are to us? It can't be their appearance or occult state. Their skills (or lack of), traits, LTRs, and LTW all play a part but there's only a finite number of combinations of those and after all these years of play it still seems like no two sims are really the same. And what is it about this infernal game that still manages to capture our imaginations as we continue to ponder ridiculous philosophical things like this anyway?
