how to materialize a family background in five seconds or less...

Believe it or not, this all started with a building project.

I was working on the LCU campus, and made a change to the Study Abroad Offices, and whenever you make a change with the lot adjuster, you have to load up the lot, make a building change and save, to get the building to show in neighborhood view again. Of course I should have thought about the fact that my Study Abroad kids are not actually home on that lot right now - but I didn't.

So I had to go visit Takemizu for a moment. And you know, since I was there, might as well make over Fenton and Iris a little!

(For the record, here's proof that Iris has absolutely no idea what she's doing to poor, poor Dallas! She didn't think one bit about that shirt when she put it on, with her boobs all clearly on display. That ought to be fun next semester, lol!)

Anyway, it wasn't until I put Fenton in that striped shirt that I realized it - Fenton and Iris...

Meet Drew and Amelia, lol!

But no, it's more than just similar shirts and a taste for smart red-heads. Fenton and Drew seem to have just about exactly the same facial features! Drew seems to have neglected to tell us he had a little brother ;)

Though, from the facts we've established so far, Drew actually has quite the strange and interesting family background that he never talks much about. Why is that, Drew? Where are your parents anyway? And what are you hiding from us?

Drew says, "Why do I have to be hiding anything? We have family money. My mom likes to travel?"

Okay, fair enough.

So let's ignore the fact that Fenton is supposed to be half-a-world away, and we can pretend these pictures were taken some time last summer before he left.

Meet Drew's little brother, Fenton, lol!

Okay, so basically they're both just randomly-created townies from the same facial template. It happens all the time. But purely going on their taste in striped polos, they *must* be brothers, right? I mean, it's only logical! ;)

So having obviously been spawned from the same facial template, their features are all, as far as I can tell, identical. Though Fenton has bluish-gray eyes, while Drew has dark brown.

It's their character differences that distinguish them any further. Fenton is a little rougher around the edges, while Drew is a bit "softer" all around, and with meticulously groomed facial hair and eyebrows, lol!

There is very little we actually know about their family. But that very little - an uncle, some family money, and different last names - happens to also be surprisingly telling.

We can assume they have different fathers, because they don't share a last name. And we can assume it's their shared mother who has the family money, because Fenton is certainly not smart enough to study at Takemizu on scholarship like his girlfriend and Dallas are. We also know that they have an uncle, Mitch Bertino, who lives in the city, also from family money, so that must be their mother's brother. So their mother (she doesn't have a first name yet - maybe we should pick her one?) must have been born a Bertino as well, before first marrying a Bruty, and then a Dyer, and a quick Google search tells me that the surname Bertino is Italian. Look at that, Drew and Fenton are now part Italian!

But where is their mom then? Or either of their dads? Drew doesn't seem ill-adjusted in any way - or well, not in any tragic way, lol! He certainly is a bit "different" though. Fenton can be a bit moody, but otherwise seems normal.

I would assume a woman of their mother's status would have married each of their fathers in turn. Which would also mean that she divorced Drew's father to marry Fenton's father. Hmmm, I wonder how Drew feels about that?

There is a bit of animosity between the two, though I imagine Drew would probably deny that - he's never been the type to willingly look at anyone else's faults, or his own. Fenton is not very tolerant of his brother's poetic whims or discussions about anything more personal than his favorite soccer team.

Though they are six years apart (Drew is 27, Fenton is 21), and that's quite an age gap considering Drew must have spent some time away at college while Fenton was a teenager. They've done most of their growing up apart, so yes, half-brothers by blood, but there isn't very much of a bond here. Maybe they'll grow into it now that they're both grown up.

All that, from changing a shirt ;)

*** oh, wait, but there's more! :) ***

Meet Drew and Fenton's mother! (and Fenton's dad, lol!)

She didn't ask to be made, she demanded it! Her name is Moira, and she's quite a vivacious lady. I absolutely love her! She's only been thought up into existence for all of about two hours, and already she's written her way into a few different stories, lol! She isn't the type of lady to sit around and wait for things to happen - she makes things happen. And I heard her voice clear as day in my head. Drew must have told her about the engagement, because she said, "My baby is getting married! I have to meet this girl!"

So she's coming home for a bit, to visit, and to meet Amelia - I feel Amelia just about having a panic attack right now, lol!

So Moira is 51 this year, and her husband, Richard (Fenton's dad) is 53. He's a stoic man, but Moira is just crazy about him.

I have their family trees all set up. Don't mind the horrible shirts on Drew and Fenton - I had to age them down to teens so that SimBlender would allow their parents to "adopt" them in-game. So now I'll have to reset all their outfits = blah!

Drew has a dad too, and you might meet him some time. He doesn't live here in the city, or even close, but I imagine he might have cause to visit some day.