Strangetown
"Truth-seekers move to Strangetown hoping to discover the secrets the town holds. Do aliens live among us? Do missing Sims mysteriously appear here? In this town nothing is what it seems."
Ah, Strangetown. A small town in the middle of nowhere, where they say strange things happen and no one ever knows if it was your mother, your father, or your mother and your father that were abducted by these strange aliens that seem to constantly pop up around the town. The inhabitants of the neighborhood are themselves rather off-the-rocker, and nothing here's ever quite as normal as they claim.Strangetown's central theme is... well, exactly that: Strange. The overall storyline of the town is mostly focused on the many mysteries and unusual occurrences that are connected with the various families residing in Strangetown. Unlike Pleasantview, there's no huge love web to supplement the drama - rather, the drama itself is from the town's inherent wackiness and its mysterious charm.
- Cloudcuckooland: Somewhat. If you live in Strangetown, chances are you're not really that normal.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: The Curious siblings (with Jenny), loosely.
- Pascal: Leukine
- Vidcund: Melancholic
- Lazlo: Choleric
- Jenny: Sanguine
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: One of Strangetown's major theme is that it's apparently a hotspot of alien activity. Outside of backstory elements and one scripted event note , it doesn't have any higher rate of alien abductions than any other neighborhood during normal gameplay.
- Tangled Family Tree: See the Curious' entry below. Try to make sense of it.
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The Curious Family
Prominent family members: Vidcund Curious, Pascal Curious, Lazlo Curious, Lola Curious, Chloe Curious, Glarn Curious, Kitty Curious, Glabe Curious, Notzo Curious, Zo Curious, Marshall Curious, Cherish Curious, Bunny Curious, Nova Curious
Appearances: The Sims 2 | The Sims 2 (PSP) | The Sims 3 | The Sims 4
A science-minded family first appearing in The Sims 2, the Curious family debuts in Strangetown as a large clan of alien-affiliated siblings scattered throughout the neighborhood. Three brothers, Pascal, Lazlo, and Vidcund, study the stars and wind up being impregnated by aliens while their sister Jenny lives down the road happily living out a stable family life with the man who ended up impregnating their father years before.In The Sims 3, Notzo Curious, the grandfather of Pascal, Lazlo, Vidcund, and Jenny, appears in The Sims 3: Ambitions world Twinbrook with his parents, Marshall and Cherish Curious, and his older sister, Bunny Curious.
Tropes applying in The Sims 2:
"In search of truth and mystery, the Curious brothers got more than they were "expecting." Can Pascal, Lazlo, and Vidcund cope with their new roles as cosmic parents?"
The family of three brothers and three sisters with alien connections. Long before the events of the game, Glarn found himself abducted by aliens and had twin girls, before dumping them with Glabe (his relation to her is unknown) while running off with a woman named Kitty, with whom he married and fathered four children: Jenny, Pascal, Vidcund and Lazlo. Today, the sons live together in a lab on top of a hill, with Pascal being abducted by aliens and carrying an alien child of his own.
- Absurdly Elderly Mother: If the siblings memories and age gap between them are any indication, Kitty Curious was just a few days away from becoming an elder when she had Lazlo.
- Adaptational Villainy: Vidcund in the PSP version.
- Agent Scully: Pascal.
- Ambiguously Brown: Lazlo and Pascal have dark hair, medium skin and vaguely asian facial features, though Vidcund and Jenny somehow ended up with light skin and blonde hair.
- Ambiguously Related: It's unknown if Glabe Curious is Glarn's ex-wife or his sister, the fact that she doesn't appears on the family tree points to the former (although it could be an oversight by the developers), while their similar sounding names hints more towards the latter.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Lazlo has a very lazy and sloppy personality, despite this, he has the Knowledge aspiration and a higher position in the Science career than his super serious older brothers.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Vidcund has a really pronounced brow.
- Cloudcuckoolander: All three of the Curious brothers fit the bill to some extent, thanks to their odd interests and the fact that as Knowledge Sims they're all obsessed with the supernatural and otherworldly. Pascal and Vidcund, as the more logical of the trio, both welcome the chance to become pregnant with alien babies in order to expand their knowledge of the universe; while Lazlo (per his bio) is slightly more interested in the paranormal side of things, and frequently phones psychic mediums in the hope of learning how to bend spoons with his mind.
- Disappeared Dad: The family album strongly implies that Glarn abandoned his two eldest daughters (Chloe and Lola) to be raised by Glabe, in order to marry Kitty and have a "normal" (i.e. not half-alien) family. This is supported by the fact that his two oldest and four youngest children don't recognise each other as siblings, suggesting that they didn't meet growing up and may not even know of the connection. However, the ages of all six Glarn's children don't add up, as Lola and Chloe are younger than Jenny but older than Lazlo.
- Expy: The Curious Brothers are basically The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files franchise.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Chloe is the foolish to Lola's responsible.
- Also, Vidcund, Pascal and Jenny are the responsible to Lazlo's foolish.
- Friend to All Living Things: Lazlo, due to his outgoing nature and playfulness.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Due to how households worked in the base game, Lola and Chloe's last name is Singles in-game, when it should be Curious. You can change their last names with mods.
- Generation Xerox: Pascal being abducted by aliens and being impregnated by one. His old man went through the same thing which lead to the birth and subsequent abandonment of Lola and Chloe.
- The Hedonist: Chloe's bio implies her to be this.
- Hot-Blooded: Vidcund, as the PSP version confirms. This is the reason why he got kicked out of being a firefighter.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Vidcund, due to his zodiac sign putting him close to grouchy. Chloe is also quite grouchy.
- LEGO Genetics: Vidcund looks nothing like any of his ancestors save for inheriting his mother's blonde hair, while Jenny looks like her mother but still has her skin and eye colors unaccounted for. Pascal and Lazlo heavily resemble their father Glarn, however.
- Lola and Chloe don't resemble their human father, for obvious reasons. Though, their facial features are far more human and definitely more conventionally attractive than their alien father.
- Long-Lost Relative: It's implied Chloe and Lola are unaware of their relationship to the Curious Brothers and Jenny and vice-versa, as they do not count them as relatives.
- Love Interest: Vidcund and Lazlo towards Circe Beaker and Crystal Vu, respectively. We actually find out that Vidcund and Circe dated as teenagers, but she ultimately left him for Loki.
- Mister Seahorse: Pascal starts off as this, and should give birth the next morning. Meanwhile, your first action upon loading this family is to get Vidcund to look into his telescope which will trigger his abduction and get him impregnated.
- Noodle Incident: Vidcund has a memory for wetting himself... as a teenager.
- No Social Skills: The brothers don't have many friends, particularly Vidcund.
- Not Blood Siblings: Inverted. Lola and Chloe are biological half-sisters to the Curious boys (as well as their sister Jenny and her kids Johnny and Jill), but the relationship isn't recognised in-game and it's implied that Jenny and her brothers don't know that their new neighbours are their long-lost sisters, or even that they have long-lost sisters. Subsequently they can date, marry, and even start a family together.
- Johnny and Jill do recognise Lola and Chloe as their sisters, however.
- Parental Abandonment: The Curious photo album heavily implies that Glarn abandoned Lola and Chloe (along with Glabe), likely because of their origins as the spawn of an alien pregnancy. PT9 is also absent from their lives, though this seems to be the norm for Pollination Technicians.
- Parental Substitute: Glabe seems to have been this for Lola and Chloe while she was alive, raising two human-alien hybrids that aren't biologically related to her.
- Polar Opposite Twins: Lola and Chloe.
- Punny Name: Some of their ancestors qualify. There's Notzo Curious and Zo Curious ("Not so curious" and "So curious", respectively) and Kitty Curious, which is likely a reference to the idiom-proverb "curiosity killed the cat".
- Remember the New Guy?: One character introduced in the PSP version is confirmed to be a cousin of Lazlo (and thus, Jenny, Pascal and Vidcund), but he does not appear in the family tree in the PC version. He could be a descendant of Bunny, their great-aunt.
- Sibling Rivalry: Implied in the PSP version, due to Vidcund abducting Pascal's child.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Pascal's basically a lighter-skinned clone of the brother's father Glarn while Lazlo's almost identical.
- Tangled Family Tree: Possibly the worst offenders in the franchise. Glarn Curious was (presumably) married to Glabe, but was abducted and impregnated by Pollination Tech#9. He gave birth to twins, Lola and Chloe, but abandoned them and their step-mother when they were children. He then married Kitty, with whom he had four children: Jenny, Pascal, Vidcund and Lazlo. Jenny then married Pollination Tech#9, who had gone native and retired to Strangetown, and together they had two children, Johnny and Jill. This means that Jenny's children are also half-siblings to her half-sisters, and Lola and Chloe are both aunts and half-sisters to Johnny and Jill, meaning that Jenny is technically her half-sisters' step-mother. Trying to figure out whether she's therefore also an aunt-by-marriage and step-sibling to her own children at this point can induce a headache.
- Seriously, just take a look at the family tree here
◊, if your brain hasn't already exploded from the amount of confusion. - Additionally, should the player follow the game's prompts and have Vidcund abducted and impregnated, you'll additionally have to deal with both Pascal's and Vidcund's babies sharing the same father, making them both half-brothers and cousins, quite similar to their own situation with the Singles girls.
- Seriously, just take a look at the family tree here
Tropes applying in The Sims 4:
- The Bus Came Back: Nova Curious is the playable character in the "Stuck in Their Shadow" scenario introduced in 2022, marking the first canon appearance of the Curious family in a dozen years. Notably, unlike many newer Sims whose relationship to older characters is lightly implied through a shared last name, it's made very clear that she's directly related to the Curious brothers from The Sims 2.
- Childhood Friend Romance: One possible conclusion to the scenario is to have her reconcile with Lewis, and from there they can optionally become a romantic couple.
- Continuity Nod: It's mentioned that she has a cousin named Tycho who "scared the crap out of" Lewis Sancho when they were kids, referencing the Half-Human Hybrid baby Pascal is pregnant with in The Sims 2 (who was revealed to be canonically a son named Tycho per The Sims 2 for PSP spin-off). It's also mentioned that she and Lewis would sneak into her father's science lab to goof around with his experiments, matching the Curious brothers all being employed in the Science career track. Finally, she looks a lot like Lazlo Curious and his canonical girlfriend Crystal Vu from the PC version, hinting at her likely parentage and relationship to the Curious family.
- Spin-Offspring: Her parentage isn't directly revealed, but given that she looks remarkably like a mix of Lazlo and his girlfriend Crystal Vu, it's not that hard for long-time fans to work out. This is further supported by the fact that Pascal's son Tycho is explicitly stated to be her cousin.
- We Used to Be Friends: Nova and her nemesis Lewis Sancho are revealed to have been close friends in childhood — to the extent that Lewis clearly spent a lot of time as a kid hanging out at her family home, and knows Tycho and the Curious brothers well enough to reminisce with her about them. They only became bitter rivals during their university days, and carried this animosity into their adult careers.
The Smith Family
Prominent family members: Pollination Technician#9 Smith, Jenny Smith (née Curious), Johnny Smith, Jill Smith
Appearances: The Sims 2 | The Sims 2 (GBA) | The Sims 2 (Nintendo DS) | The Sims 2 (PSP) | The Sims 4
The Smiths are a hybrid alien-human family who first debut in The Sims 2. The family is composed of the elderly Pollination Technician#9, who retired to Strangetown and ended up marrying the daughter of the man he impregnated, Jenny. Together, they raised two children, Johnny and Jill. Unfortunately for them, they have a rather strained relationship with their next-door neighbors the Grunts, with General Buzz Grunt despising PT9 on account of him being an alien and beating him in a fight.Though they don't appear in any more Sims media after 2, Johnny does end up making a cameo in the handheld games as a store clerk, and an official Maxis recreation of the Smiths can be downloaded from the gallery in The Sims 4.
Tropes applying in The Sims 2:
"After a fruitful career, Pollination Technician 9 has retired to his favorite planet. But can his son Johnny make friends and fit in, or is this family just too strange for Strangetown?"
Jenny Curious was lucky enough to actually marry the alien who impregnated her father. She became a mother of two children through him legally, and when the game begins, it's her oldest child's birthday. Pollination Tech#9 is also the only one in town strong enough to win a fight with Buzz Grunt, who managed to curb-stomp Jenny's younger brothers and Loki as teenagers, which triggers the family rivalry.- Alliterative Family: Jenny, Johnny, and Jill.
- Arch-Nemesis: General Buzz Grunt is this to Pollination Tech#9.
- Tank Grunt is one for Johnny, and they will often have a want to fight each other.
- Bee People: Looking back at PT9's family tree, it appears Alien society functions like this, with all his male ancestors being numbered "Colony Drones", and all his female ancestors being "Birth Queens".
- Cool Old Guy: PT9 is one of the nicest Sims in all of Strangetown, and has a positive relationship with everybody he knows, except General Buzz.
- Family Versus Career: Discussed in Jenny's bio, which states that while she loves having a career, she wishes she could spend more time with her family.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Jill has no physical alien traits, which in genetic terms is incredibly rare because alien genes are very dominant.
- Gender Equals Breed: Jill has no alien features whatsoever, even though green skin and black eyes are dominant in the game.
- Averted in the PSP version; she's got eyes in the back of her head!
- Definitely averted, should the player produce more children in-game. Alien genetics are almost universally stronger than human ones, no matter what gender.
- Girlish Pigtails: Jill's hairstyle when the game is first loaded.
- Happily Married: PT9 and Jenny adore each other, share the same aspiration goals, and have a high starting relationship.
- Humanoid Alien: Not only is PT9's race human enough to survive, and live like Sims, they are apparently similar enough that they can have children, the traditional way with normal Sims.
- Kill It with Fire: Jill can actually set other Sims on fire in the PSP version.
- LEGO Genetics: Neither of the Smith kids' appearances match up with how in-game genetics work.
- Lovable Jock: Johnny.
- Like Father, Like Son: PT9 and General Buzz Grunt are fierce rivals, just like their sons Johnny and Tank.
- May–December Romance: Jenny and PT9, according to their memories although PT9 is implied to have met Jenny as an adult, not to mention the fact that Jenny is pretty close to becoming an elder herself.
- Meaningful Name: The Smiths. Probably the most common last name in the English speaking world, and quite fitting for a family that's (ignoring the alien thing) the most stereotypical nuclear family you can find.
- Parental Abandonment: PT9 was absent from the lives of his and Glarn Curious' daughters, which seems to be the norm for pollination technicians.
- PT9 himself has no memories of his parents, and it seems to be the norm in the alien society for the parents to not have any relationship to their mate or children.
- Practically Different Generations: Johnny becomes an adult the in-game day the player starts playing with them, unless anything is done to revert this, while Jill still has some days left until she becomes a teenager. This is also present in the previous generation of the family, with Jenny having only 5 days left until she becomes an elder, while her youngest brother Lazlo still has 28 days in his adult life stage, which means that, if they always had a 23 in-game days age difference, Lazlo was born when Jenny was midway through her teen life stage (and Jenny's memories are consistent with their age gap).
- Ridiculously Average Guy: Despite half of them having green skin, the Smiths are generally the most normal, functional family in all of Strangetown.
- Uncanny Family Resemblance: Jill and Jenny look near identical when comparing adult Jill to Jenny.
The Beaker Family
Prominent family members: Loki Beaker, Circe Beaker, Erin Beaker, Nervous Subject
Appearances: The Sims 2 | The Sims 3 | The Sims 2 (PSP) | The Sims 4
Tropes applying in The Sims 2:
"What experiments are the highly secretive and less than neighborly Loki and Circe Beaker performing on poor Nervous Subject? Will this secrecy affect Circe's career ambitions?"
The Beakers are a secretive and ambitious family who're willing to take some unsavoury measures in the name of Science. Poor Nervous Subject's been reduced to a gibbering wreck because of this, and he can't seem to catch a break from all the experiments they're performing on him. Circe has her sights set on a promotion, but the couple's secrecy might just prove a hindrance to her ambitions.
- Aerith and Bob: Loki and his younger sister... Erin.
- Ambiguously Brown: Circe. Her name and family tree suggests Greek ancestry.
- Nervous too, even though he has pale skin, every one of his relatives are dark-skinned. Wonder how he became so bone white...
- Ambiguously Gay: Nervous' relationship with Pascal could be interpreted as this. Nervous is set as gay and flirts with Pascal when free will is on, so this seems to be canon.
- Ambiguously Bi: Circe is set as Bi.
- Blue Is Heroic: Loki presents an inversion; he wears a blue sweater and has blue eyes but he is a Mad Scientist that experiments on Nervous Subject For Science!
- Born Unlucky: Nervous.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Loki's browline literally covers half of his eyes.
- Cool Shades: Circe wears orange-tinted glasses when the game is first loaded.
- Death by Adaptation: Nervous is deceased in the PSP version.
- Divine Parentage: Nervous is implied to be the son of the Grim Reaper.
- Evil Eyebrows: Loki. In fact, his eyebrows are permanently shaped in a angry or evil expression.
- Evil Redhead: Circe.
- Face of a Thug: Loki's got a ridiculously sharp/pointy face with his eyebrows somehow permanently locked in evil-mode and an even pointier goatee.
- Circe's got a pretty sharp face as well, along with tinted shades that cover whatever soul you would see in her eyes.
- Face–Heel Turn: Loki in Aurora Skies is a very nice kid. But here in Strangetown? He is mean and dead serious in the name of science.
- For Science!: The couple's justification for their experiments on Nervous.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Circe's got sleek, orange-tinted shades, which really adds to the whole "creepy doctor/mad scientist" vibe.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- It's said that the Beakers adopted Nervous, which in-game isn't at all the case since a) Nervous isn't connected to them at all and b) they aren't that much older than Nervous to begin with.
- All the weird contrapments that poor Nervous is forced to test are really just career rewards, that actually help the person using them, provided something doesn't go wrong.
- Due to how households worked in the base game, Erin's last name is Singles in game, though it would actually be Beaker. You can change it using mods.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Nervous (half-human, half-Grim Reaper), allegedly.
- Jerkass: All three of them.
- LEGO Genetics: Compare the incredibly pale and weird-looking Nervous to his mother and cousin.
- Also, compare the very obviously evil-looking Loki to his sister and ancestors.
- Mad Doctor: Circe.
- Mad Scientist: Loki.
- Nervous Wreck: Nervous Subject.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Circe's bio says she knows 238 different ways to make people scream, and none of pleasant, which implies this.
- No Name Given: Nervous Subject.
- Non-Specifically Foreign: Loki's family seems to be Scandinavian or Icelandic, based on their names and appearances. The world they live in during The Sims 3, Aurora Skies also happens to be very heavily based on Iceland.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Loki's permanent angry eyebrows, pointy face and big nose definitely give him a more cartoonish vibe compared to other Sims.
- Nervous as well. While his face is fairly normal, aside from being very long and thin, with oddly angled eyes, his huge black mohawk really does make him stand out.
- Obviously Evil: They live in a huge castle, have permanent angry faces and are pretty much automatically mean to everyone they meet.
- Only Six Faces: Due to the infamously buggy nature of Strangetown, almost every dead ancestor to both Loki and Circe (bar one or two) have the exact same default face template, with no eyebrows.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Loki's younger sister Erin lives elsewhere in the neighbourhood, and is incredibly sweet and harmless, if a bit eccentric. Despite this, they seem to have no trouble maintaining a good relationship.
- Trademark Favorite Food: The Beaker family all love some kind of sandwich, Loki's is Grilled Cheese.
- Tragic Villain: Nervous isn't really a villain, but is still very rude and mean, which makes sense when you realize that the Beaker's experiments permanently wiped almost all of his personality.
- Truly Single Parent: In the third game's Into the Future Expansion'', you can run into Loki's twin "children", two identical clone "siblings" called Atom and Ceres, who were somehow sent into the future.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Loki, if the player sees Strangetown's Loki and Aurora Skies' Loki as part of the same continuity.
The Specter Family
Prominent family members: Olive Specter, Ophelia Nigmos
Appearances: The Sims 2 | The Sims 3 | The Sims 4
Tropes applying in The Sims 2:
"Who is buried in Olive Specter's garden? Will the mysterious, aging outcast leave her fortune to her niece Ophelia, or, as rumored, to an unnamed heir?"
Olive Specter is known for her garden, which contains mostly gravestones implied to belong to people she murdered. She's been married many times, but almost all of her romances have ended in death. Her graveyard includes the tombstones of her own parents, her sister, her brother-in-law, her husbands and runaway fiancé, and even Lyla Grunt. She also had one child through the Grim Reaper who was taken away from her as an infant who was later taken in as the test subject of the Beaker family. When you first play as her, she is living with her niece, Ophelia.- Absurdly Elderly Mother: Olive's memories indicate she had Nervous Subject when she was already an elder, which is not possible in normal gameplay.
- Ambiguously Evil: Olive is strongly hinted to have murdered all of the Sims whose graves rest in her yard, and her biography paints her in a suspicious and violent light, but ultimately it was up to the players to choose their own explanations.
- One town in The Sims 3 features a younger Olive and offers an explanation: She didn't kill anyone, or at least not her husbands; she's just a magnet for bad luck, even having the Unlucky trait. She didn't meet the Reaper until she furiously tracked him down to call him out on the deaths of her husbands. This doesn't say anything about what happened to all the other dead people, though...
- Arch-Nemesis: Olive to Buzz Grunt, due to the latter being upset with the presumed murder of his ex-wife. Due to one of her wants being to invite him over when you first play the household, many fans believe that Olive is targeting Buzz as her next victim.
- Black Widow: Olive. She had three husbands and almost married a fourth, all but one of these men died early.
- Cain and Abel: Olive's sister Willow seems to have been a fairly well adjusted person, who just happened to be one of the people that mysteriously died and were buried in Olive's garden.
- Cartwright Curse: What The Sims 3 offers for an explanation for her husband's death's. Is it any wonder that she eventually wound up with the Grim Reaper? It might also be extended for her familial relations.
- Creepy Aunt: Olive to Ophelia.
- December–December Romance: The album, as well as Olive's memories, also indicate that she married Ichabod Specter when they were both elders. Notably, he's the only Sim buried on her lot who died of old age.
- Divine Date: Olive has a memory of WooHooing the Grim Reaper, and he's notably also the only person she remembers having WooHooed.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Olive seems to be rather kind to Ophelia, all things considered.
- Also implied to be the case with her last husband Ichabod, who was the only Sim in her graveyard to die of natural causes. To further this theory, his grave is right next to Olive's chair.
- Evil Old Folks: Potentially Olive, if one subscribes to the Serial Killer theory.
- Facial Horror: As listed below, most Sims in Olive's graveyard are really, really buggy. As such, a lot of sims buried on her lot suffer from really nasty-looking facial corruptions, some pretty much look ready to fall apart.
- Game-Breaking Bug: The deceased Sims in Olive's graveyard are notoriously buggy, with issues ranging from mismatched ages and genders, dummied-out aspirations, and corrupted facial features. While fans have attempted to recreate a less glitched version of the cemetery that's safe to mess around with, it's considered unwise to resurrect anyone there in an unmodified Strangetown, or else risk corrupting the neighborhood. The most corrupted of these is the delivery man Knut Futa, who has absolutely no genetics whatsoever. The game treats him as a baby instead of an adult, and will most often crash the game upon attempting to interact with him outside of cheats or modifications to his character file. It should be a godsend that his grave doesn't appear in Olive's graveyard, so he won't likely crash your game anytime soon unless you active testingcheats.
- Jerkass: Ignoring possibly being a serial killer, Olive's got a very low Nice score, meaning she's most likely gonna pick fights for the hell of it.
- May–December Romance: The family album indicates that Olive and Rigger Mortis married while she was an adult and he was an elder.
- Non-Specifically Foreign: Judging by her family tree, her family comes from somewhere in subsaharan Africa, and her parents names are a mix of traditional African and Swahili names, yet her and her sister's names are European, and her house decor is Moroccan.
- The Paranoiac: Ophelia's bio paints her as someone who worries a lot.
- Punny Name: Olive Specter, Hugh Thanasia, Lou Thanasia, Earl E. DeMise, Tim Lee DeMise, Ichabod Specter and Rigger Mortis.
- Self-Made Orphan: Implied, as Olive's parents died early.
- Serial Killer: Olive, potentially.
- Silver Fox: Olive is generally considered to be one of the most attractive elders in the game.
- Start of Darkness: Earl E. DeMise leaving Olive at the altar probably started her serial killings.
- It might have started even earlier, since Olive's memories feature a pizza delivery woman that died mysteriously when she was a teenager.
- Unfortunate Names: The Sims 3 incarnation of Rigger Mortis, one of Olive's husbands, comments in his bio about how bad of an omen his name is.It's not Olive's fault. I think I was doomed when my parents named me Rigger Mortis.
- Would Hurt a Child: Some of the dead included teenagers. Maybe. (As hinted in Game-Breaking Bug, those particular Sims are actually considered adults by the game. However, their appearances suggest they might be intended to be teens.)
- Your Days Are Numbered: Olive doesn't have many days in the game before it's set to have her die of old age.
Tropes applying in The Sims 4:
- Adaptational Name Change: The official recreation of this family released for The Sims 4 changes Ophelia's last name to Specter to match her grandmother. The most common theory is that the word filter on the Gallery would have flagged her original surname, Nigmos.
The Grunt Family
Prominent family members: General Buzz Grunt, Tank Grunt, Ripp Grunt, Buck Grunt, Lyla Grunt
Appearances: The Sims 2 | The Sims 2 (GBA) | The Sims 2 (DS) | The Sims 2 (PSP) | The Sims 4
The Grunts are a career military family first appearing in The Sims 2. As General of Strangetown, General Buzz holds considerable clout around town and is one of the strongest men around, only rivalled by the alien PT9, whom he despises. His son Tank idolizes him greatly and wants to follow in his footsteps, but his other two sons, Ripp and Buck, show little interest in carrying on the family tradition.The Grunts do not appear in The Sims 3, but Tank appears in the handheld versions of The Sims 2 as a prominent supporting character with several plotlines in both the GBA and DS version, and the family also shows up in the PSP version of the game. Players can download a Maxis-made recreation of the Grunts in The Sims 4's gallery.
Tropes applying in The Sims 2:
"Tank has always lived under the hard thumb of his father, General Buzz Grunt. In this domesticated boot camp, can Tank prove his worth to this demanding Dad?"
Buzz Grunt is the local General of town. His son, Tank, wants to follow in his footsteps, but his other sons Ripp and Buck show no interest in pursuing a career in the military. Buzz also has a large hatred for PT9 and his family and, unbeknownst to him his ex-wife Lyla is buried in Olive Specter's garden, implied to have been murdered by her.
- Arch-Nemesis: Pollination Tech#9 is this to Buzz, while Johnny Smith is this to Tank.
- The Bully: Buzz's memories imply he was this as a teenager to the Curious Brothers and Loki Beaker. Nowadays, they're more or less acquaintances.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Buck is nowhere to be found in the PSP version of The Sims 2.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Though not a definite thing, fans often pair Buck with Jill Smith when he grows up.
- Dumbass Teenage Son: Ripp is implied to be this.
- Dysfunctional Family: A hot-headed, perfectionist military that runs his home like a boot camp, while his two eldest sons fight constantly and his youngest just kinda ends up forgotten.
- Facial Horror: The brothers' mother Lyla's facial data is corrupted, meaning that her face will be deformed, not to mention the fact that her bad data may corrupt the town if you bring her back to life.
- Facial Markings: General Buzz and Tank both wear military face paint.
- Family Theme Naming: All the Grunt men have rugged, short military names like "Ripp", "Chip", "Rock" and "Tank".
- Fantastic Racism: Probably the reason the General hates the alien family.
- Fat and Skinny: Buzz and Tank are (of course) incredibly fit, Ripp is skinny and Buck is chubby.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Lyla Grunt, like everybody else who is buried in Olive Specter's graveyard has a lot of corrupted/junk data and can cause some pretty freaky glitches if you bring her back.
- Generation Xerox: The game clearly pushes this in Tank's case. Not only is he the only one actively interested in following his father's footsteps, he also carries on a rivalry with Johnny Smith that started with their fathers.
- The family as a whole seems to have have a pretty consistent track record of this, General Buzz is the son of General Chip, who's the son of General Rock and so on.
- Hidden Depths: Buzz's bio mentions that he used to enjoy barbershop quartet singing.
- Tank's bio makes it clear that there's more to him than just a military brat, and that he really just wants to have friends like any other boy.
- In the Blood: The Grunts have been a military family for a long time when the game starts. Both General Buzz's dad and grandfather were Generals as well.
- Jerkass: General Buzz. He's only got two nice points, making it very likely that he's gonna make enemies, whether you command him to or not.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Tank. He's aggressive like his father, but he's got a nicer personality, and his bio seems to indicate he'd rather just have friends.
- Mildly Military: There's no way a Real Life military would let a general show up to work with football player eye black makeup. Tank Grunt would also not be allowed to wear face camo every day, only if he's on an operation.
- Military Brat: Tank, Ripp and Buck. Buzz is implied to have been one himself as a child, since his family tree shows that his father was also a General, as was his grandfather.
- Missing Mom: Lyla disappears sometime before the game begins after divorcing Buzz. She's actually dead, and is buried in Lady Specter's garden, which explains her feud with Buzz.
- Older Than They Look: General Buzz certainly doesn't look like a man in his forties.
- Sibling Rivalry: Ripp and Tank don't get along. They don't actively hate each other, but they tend to mess with each other autonomously.
- The Slacker: Ripp, which is implied to be the reason for the tension between him and Buzz.
- The Un-Favourite: Ripp is heavily implied to be this.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: The family and personal bios imply this for Tank, and possibly Buck.
The Loner Family
Prominent family members: Ajay Loner
Appearances: The Sims 2
Consists solely of Ajay Loner, a newly moved in resident to Strangetown.- Ambiguously Brown: He has brown eyes, black hair and medium skin. His, along with his family's names suggest they are of Indian heritage.
- Missing Mom: For unknown reasons, Ajay has no memories of his mother, having seemingly been raised by his grandmother and father instead.
- Meaningful Name: Ajay Loner, the guy that just moved to town and doesn't know anybody.
- The New Guy: Ajay's schtick. He is new in town, and not really used to the strangeness of Strangetown.
- Ridiculously Average Guy: Compared to everybody else in Strangetown, Ajay comes off as this.
The Loste Family
Prominent family members: Kristen Loste
Appearances: The Sims 2
Kristen Loste, who at the start of the game, is living with Erin Beaker and the Curious Twins as part of the Singles Household.- Ambiguously Brown
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Due to how households worked in the base game, Kristen's last name is Singles in game, but her family tree shows that her last name should actually be Loste. You can change it using mods.
- The Generic Guy: Compared to the Curious twins, who are aliens, and Erin, who is the sister of a mad scientist.
- Meaningful Name: Kristen Loste, a normal woman who's somehow found herself in a town full of mad scientists, aliens (two of which are her roommates) and potential serial killers.
- Punny Name: A lot of Kristen's ancestors have this, such as Goshum Lostenote and Vera Loste.note
- Small Town Boredom: Her bio says she has little interest in Strangetown and doesn't see herself saying there long.
