So, Cassandra Goth won Jojoa777's tournament. Narrowly, but a win all the same.

For me this result was a surprise, because she didn't make much of an impression on me in my (admittedly limited) experience of Pleasantview. She came across to me more as a person that things happen to, than one who does things. True, in my game she attacked Don on her intended wedding day instead of marrying him, which I admit does show a certain feistiness, but even then she lost the fight, and then was immediately upstaged by the unexpected reappearance of her mother, who had been missing, presumed dead for years. Now, I left the Goth household like that, with Mortimer and Bella, re-engaged and in bed together, and Cassandra still sleeping alone, and with no idea of what the future might hold for her. (Which I suppose must be a disappointment for her on what was meant to be her wedding night.)

Some day, I'll open up Pleasantview and continue that story, and then I'll have to think about what to do with Cassie. One thing I think I shall do is get her an appointment with a hairdresser, because I think part of my problem is that I find it hard to take an adult seriously with that hair! I've never seen anything remotely like it In Real Life. (The nearest I can think of is Pippi Langstrumpf/Longstocking, but she is (1) a child and (2) fictional!)

Obviously Cassandra has made a much bigger impression on many of you, so I'd like to ask you all what you did with her, and what made her special for you. That would include what you did with her in the original Sims (1), if you've been playing that long. I suspect that long familiarity with her since the beginning of The Sims must be part of her charm, and of course something that latecomers like myself missed out on.

PenelopeT has already answered some of this on another thread (thanks! ), but I'd like to hear what everyone has to say.

I extracted and remade Cassie and moved her in as my retirement home caretaker. I also have Malcolm Landgrab in that hood as a political candidate along with Mary-Sue as his oposition and the twins. Those were the only pre-mades that interested me enough to extract and use. So yes I do like cassie, but why I'm not sure except I think she needed a break. Some might not think a nursing home attendant is a break, but she has a very nice place with a bit of light cooking.

Did you change her hair Jo?

In my Pleasantview she escaped from marrying Don (I really did think they were totally incompatible), but I haven't done anything else with her. One day I shall go back to Pleasantview and play it a bit more. But to be honest, it's Brandi, Dustin, Lilith, Angela and Dirk that I'm looking forward to playing. Maybe I find it hard to relate to the ultra-rich.

The premade family that I really wanted in my game was the Newsons. There was something in the story of those orphaned kids trying to make a go of their lives without adult help that really got to me.

Lol, your asking someone with 20gigs of content if I kept that Maxis monstrosity? I use a default for the coat hanger hair, this one: http://sims2defaults.dreamwidth.org/310075.html top left. The picture on GOS has gone. No woman in her right mind would wear her hair like that.

The way I see it she was desperate to get away from her father and Don thought it was easy money street but got cold feet at the last minute. I don't even know or play most pre-mades but it's a bit hard to avoid the Goth story.

... I was hoping I might have a good photos but they are all too far away, behind and the only close up was after Dora died- not a good shot. Her back is on my retirement home uploaded here, that's the place she is care taker of. https://www.modthesims.info/d/497990 She must be camera shy.

This is the same hood I played all the Blue Water and bin sims as well.

In my megahood Cassandra left Don at the altar and moved to Belladonna Cove.
She needed a break after all this mess.

Soon she met Connor Weir. They get along very well and became friends.
One day Connor asked her if she wanted to marry. She said yes!
She's in the medical career and currently pregnant.

The hair is the same style that she had as a child in Sims 1 and I'd imagine that's why she was given it as an adult, so we would recognise her.

I didn't like Don as a partner for her. He's a cheater and a loser. So I broke them up and got her together with Darren Dreamer. She was his muse; I thought that was far more romantic. XD

Cassandra has always been my favourite, mainly because we share a name, but I've loved her since the original Sims game. In my current game, Mortimer invited Dina over and she went straight to Don and kissed him right in front of Cassandra! - She told her Dad, but he didn't believe her, and seeing as Cassandra was not getting married today, why waste the wedding? Mortimer and Dina got married instead. Cassandra, angry and heartbroken moved out, and met a nice man named Timothy Riley and his adorable daughter Sally. They hit it off and fell in love, got married and now live in Belladonna cove. Cassandra made up with her father after moving out, and reconciled with her mother on her wedding day. She then gave birth to little Harry. She's now pregnant again, and her half-sister Martha Goth might end up moving in soon, being that Dina got caught cheating with Malcolm by Mortimer, causing them to break up. Mortimer is getting old now, and doesn't want to die leaving Martha with her mother, but Alexander is going to university soon and she's only just turned into a child so she can't really be left on her own.

Personally, I like Cassandra's hairstyle, as weird as it sounds. Admittedly, having that hairstyle in real life as an adult would be weird, but in my Sims game it's never bothered me. Maybe because I started playing her when I was 8, and at the age of 8 that hairstyle is as normal as any other! I've played her (and any other premade actually) for years looking the way they do, and so to me that hairstyle belongs to Cassandra - I've grown so used to her this way, can't really see her any differently. That's why I'm never that big on makeovers on premade Sims, I prefer them mostly as they are because that's how I've played them for years in the past.

I think a lot of people are able to identify with her. She's shy and lonely, responsible for taking care of Alexander since Mortimer is getting old and overcome with grief for Bella, but she very much wants to build a life of her own. She yearns for a family to call her own. Because of her insecurities, she's quick to fall in love with anyone who professes any kind of love to her, who shows any kind of interest in her because that has never happened to her, being the quiet and studious type. And so she falls right into the hands of Don, whose intentions are not the nicest, but in my game she always learns a big lesson from this. She's quick to leave Don behind and find her happiness elsewhere. In that aspect, I disagree with you that she is the type that lets things happen to her instead of taking action herself - she is in the beginning, but that's what's amazing about it; she learns from her mistakes, picks herself up and realises that it isn't a man she needs in order to find her happiness. She starts to find happiness in herself. I think that can be quite relatable to a lot of people, the thought that you need a relationship in order to be happy.

In my game, the Goth family's story is actually quite complicated in a way, so Cassandra is really interesting! For it to make any sense though, I'd have to elaborate a little bit on the rest of the Goths (and some other households too). Don and Cassandra got married, but from Don's perspective it's more of a business arrangement than a true marriage. The people behind Bella's abduction are the Beakers, who hired Don and Dina (Nina is more oblivious and innocent than her sister). Don kept up his charade of being a true husband for a while, but then the Goths finally figured out that he's involved in Bella's kidnapping - they couldn't get rid of him because they might harm Bella. Eventually Bella gets returned, Cassandra divorces Don, and everybody involved in her kidnapping is taken to court. The plan is for a few of them to be put into a reformation facility of sorts (no prison in my game, too realistic for me!)

As a result of everything Cassandra experienced, she did need time to herself. She's not remarried yet, because I imagine she'd need time to heal - though I do plan on getting her married and having babies!

I didn't really write much about Cassandra herself, but I think this paints a good enough picture of what happened to her/will happen to her.

Cassandra's life in my game usually go one of two ways. 1. She marries Don successfully, they stay together and she never discovers the cheating 2. Don leaves her and she marries Darren instead. This time around, she's married to Don but she is going to leave him when she discovers his cheating. As to why she's special, I don't know, she just makes me love her.

I'm always surprised at how many players want to make Cassandra out to be the victim, being fooled by Don, or that Darren Dreamer is her supposed soul-mate.


Personally, I've loved Cassandra and the Goths (great band name!) since TS1 - but grown-up Cassandra gets interesting. Why would Cassandra be interested in and engaged to Don Lothario? Is he playing her for her family money? Possibly. I prefer to think that nobody understands what she is thinking and nobody sees the potential in Don that she sees. He's an intern - but he can become a doctor. He screws around - but maybe he could become a husband. I think, inwardly, she is a lot more like Bella than we give her credit for.

(Don needs a lot of soul-searching to reach that potential. In my game, he does - after being seduced and then tortured by Circe Beaker, perhaps also getting a couple of aspiration changes rattling his psyche).

I have played out the Cassandra/Darren story before and I don't like it. She's a muse to him: in reality, Darren would never be able to recognize the real woman behind his muse - much less marry her.

I really like Cassandra. For all the reasons others have mentioned - I played TS1 and the Goths were easily the best premades, plus I think her facial structure is quite strikingly beautiful, and I really like the fact that she's interested in science. That's a rare choice for a fictional female character, and I really like it when characters just subtly toss off gender roles, not with a bang or a huge song and dance, but she's a girl and she's a scientist and it's just no big deal.

I did change her hair. I've put a few hairs on her and I'm not keen on the pigtails at all.

I don't mind Cassie, she's just a whole lot naive in the sense of refusing to see what's in front of her.
In my game, Mortimer and Bella had/have an open marriage. (Knowledge/Romance, Romance/Knowledge) Cassie is willfully oblivious to this. "Oh, Mom and Dad have friends over tonight. I'll just go read in my room." And she interprets any innuendo or flirting as just adults being silly and really not anything. Anyone else (Alexander) would be flipping out about how their supposedly fairy-tale-marriage parents' marriage isn't.
So when Don (Romance/Fortune) shows up, she's dreaming of her happily ever after fairy tale marriage. He knows what to say to sweep her off her feet. And then he asks her what she wants out of life, and she says "A marriage just like my parents." and Don says "Marry me." Because Don is not naive and knows darn well that Mortimer and Bella have an open marriage. By the time of their wedding date, he's figured out that Cassie doesn't know this. But he loves her (and all those others, too) and he'd like to marry a rich girl, and so he's on the verge of breaking up with her, but that is an awful thing to do to her, but he really doesn't want to 'forsake all others' either, and she's going to be horrified and does he have any business explaining what her parents' marriage is, and if he doesn't she'll hate him for ever, and if he does she'll hate him anyway, and . . . he doesn't have a winning option here.

So he might marry her and continue seeing other women and put off the consequences indefinitely. (Honeymoon, after the first couple kids are born, whenever.) He might arrange to get caught cheating so she dumps him. He might accidentally get caught cheating. He might break up with her. He might reject her at the arch. (Can you tell I've played them a fair few times?)

She might catch him and dump him/divorce him at any point. She might, rejected, go off for a fling and try to get knocked up because she really wants a baby.

I've never played her keeping him after finding out about his cheating. But I could see that happen, too, especially if she'd quit her job and they had several small children. "I'm sleeping in the kids room, Don. Don't ever bring your floozies around this house, and don't ever touch me again, and I won't divorce you."

But, and this is a big but for me. But, Dina is Cassie's aunt by marriage. That makes Dina and Nina Aunt Dina and Aunt Nina in my view. And I just can't see either of them being involved with a man who's cheating on their niece. I figure Don met Cassandra when he came as Nina's plus one to some Goth family event, maybe a Christmas party. Cassie asked Nina if Don was her boyfriend, and Nina said, quite truthfully, "Absolutely not." But those twin sisters talk, and they both know what sort of man Don is/was. The only way he's marrying Cassie in the first place is if they're convinced he's turned over a new leaf. So if he puts a move on either of them, or they catch him out with Kaylynn or someone else, I figure they tell Cassie. Now whether or not she believes them . . . well, that's a different story. (Bella, Dina, Nina, Cassie is an interesting dynamic, where Bella's brother was Dina's husband, but Dina and Nina are much closer in age to Cassie.)

Of course Cassie gets a makeover. Whether it's Bella's doing when she turns back up, or Aunt Dina and Aunt Nina's doing, that makeover's happening.

Originally, I had Cassandra marry Don because I wanted to show my daughter the "run from the altar" scenario which is supposed to happen when they get married. Well, to my great shock - Don went through with the marriage! (As it turns out, because I'd been playing Kaylynn and the Calientes - but not the Goth or Lothario houses - by the time I got to the Goth house, Don had his highest relationship score with Cassandra. So he didn't run away. )

Don and Cassandra were married for a number of years. They had a daughter Calista. Cassandra focused on work and her daughter; Don had lots of affairs and was a sucky dad. Eventually, Cassandra picked up on his cheating and had an affair with Darren (resulting in the birth of her second child, Dexter). They continued on with a relatively indifferent relationship, until one of the children in the house grew up - and Don kissed Dina in front of everyone. After that, Cassandra kicked him out of the house (but didn't have the sense to divorce him, leaving me with the trouble of trying to figure out how to get them broken up later on). She was alone and lonely for a number of years, until Darren's wife died. She then moved in with Darren, finally figured out how to divorce Don, and got remarried to her soulmate. They had the Golden Anniversary she dreamed of, and spent the rest of their lives happily studying together, whoohooing, and helping raise their son Dexter's children (he had moved in with them after he graduated from college). They died a day apart during my last rotation in platinum aspiration and very happy together.

Most of the Sims that I play become special to me. But I think one of the reasons Cassandra is special to me is because I played the original Sims, and I really liked the Goth family in that game.

(pretends to be interviewed for a bio-pic of Cassandra)

I first met Cassandra Goth when we were both children. Back then I already recognized the Goths as an obvious Addams Family parody and it took me a while to warm up to them. By the time Sims 2 was announced they had grown into one of my favorite families and it was largely because I wanted their clan to expand that I was looking forward to Sims 2.

I was a bit surprised by the way the Goths were portrayed in Sims 2; Bella was gone and Cassandra had a rather odd appearance, but warmed up to the TS2 story as well. Usually I start playing Cassandra with ruining her and Don's wedding (because Cassandra deserves better) and then giving her a makeover. I don't put her in any "sexy" clothing or stuff but definitely in things I find personally find more tasteful and flattering than the black dress + enormous pigtails. Then I like to merry her to Darren Dreamer and have children with him, if they have a daughter, her name is Bella.
In my current Megahood Apocalypse she's working her way up in the Medical Career to bring back sanitation to Sim Nation, married to Lalzo Curious (now Lalzo Goth) and is mother to their daughter Helen and stepmother to his half-alien son Luke.

Minus the pigtails, I always found Cassandra's starting situation to be annoying. A new mechanic (back then) of leaving someone at the altar was introduced, and it had to be a male running off?! I take Cassandra's pigtails as a sign of her inner childishness and thus she becomes the one to leave Don at the altar, and not the other way around. After that, she can be anything really. In one of my games she owned the first hotel in Pleasantview (still wearing her pigtails); in another, she inherited her family fortune and married Darren Dreamer and had a girl with him (who also wore the same pigtails). In one instance I changed Don's personality instead, but still there was no marriage, just dating.
In each instance only the pigtails survived :P

But yes, even though I didn't vote in that tournament, it's Cassandra Goth who was the most interesting and the one I played first in any Pleasantview I started. Next was always Brandi Broke's family - making them not poor is one of my Pleasantview missions.

In my previous Pleasantview Cassandra got pregnant with Don's baby (as she had a Have Baby want) but then split up with him before their wedding when she caught him cheating. She then took in a half-alien foundling, named Stella, and adopted her (she was actually the half-alien daughter of Bella, but in my mind Cassie doesn't know that!) before rolling yet another Have Baby want and going out and getting herself abducted by aliens, which led to twins. So she ended up with four kids - William, Stella, Arabella and Sebastian. She stayed single for a long time after breaking up with Don, but eventually married Darren Dreamer - after his second wife, Dora Ottomas, had passed away. She is now a widow, but is very involved with raising her grandchildren. She still works in the Science career track and has been as successful as her education allowed. Eldest son William is now married and has a couple of kids. He went to university in Takemizu Village, and when he returned he moved in with his Uncle Alexander. Stella is currently studying at Downtown College, living in the hall of residence there. Arabella is 17 yeardays old and will be off to college or university herself soon, but for now she is helping her Mum raise Sebastian's half-alien triplets after Sebastian died in childbirth.

I enjoyed playing Cassandra Goth (now Cassandra Dreamer), but she's not my favourite sim, not by a long stretch! I do vaguely remember her from The Sims, though, but I don't recall being overly fond of her then, either....

I quite liked her when I played Pleasantview once - long ago, though, so I can't say that I get her win either She married Darren Dreamer and they lived reasonably happily ever after.

I've always looked on Cassandra as a woman looking for herself. She really does know that Don's not her type-she doesn't understand why she was attracted to him in the first place.
As for Darren, she likes him well enough, but he's just not a live spark. She's tired of living in her parents' shadow, and as the primary heir of the Goth fortune, she's more ambitious than she appears.

I always change her hair and her clothes. A grown woman wearing pigtails and that horrid dress is just not appropriate, especially a scientist.

There's always a lowest-common-denominator with popularity contests. To be completely awesome, a character also has to push the envelope a bit - some some people will be bound to reject her. There's so many contradictory ways of interpreting Dina, some people are bound to cast her as evil and dislike her. Some people find Strangetown characters too weird and uncomfortable to play. Cassandra is unambiguously good and sympathetic. Once you winnow out the more controversial figures, she starts accumulating votes by default from people who would really have preferred to see someone else at the top of this arbitrary heap.

I'm not dissing Cassandra when I say this. It's certainly possible to play her in an extreme way - but she doesn't default to it like, say, Circe or Nervous.

Cassandra is actually one reason I haven't played Pleasantview properly yet. When I first played my experimental games, fresh from Sims1, of course I went straight to the Goths - but Bella was gone, and Cassandra had grown up unrecognizable (hence the pigtails and round glasses, which mimic her head in Sims1). Where was my prim, clever little girl who wouldn't get off the piano, who sat on the front porch reading, who tried to raise a dragon, who made friends with kids by playing tag and with grownups by talking about nuclear fission. No way did my Cassandra grow up to be taken advantage of by some sleaze! Even now it's hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that they made her a Family sim. No Roomies, Bella gone, Michael Bachelor dead, the Newbies nowhere to be seen (I didn't know about family trees), the house all wrong - this wasn't right! So I went and played Strangetown and accidentally killed Vidcund and the rest is history.

True that. On both accounts. I just favoured Cassandra over Brandie and Lilith (both Sims I'm not too fond of) and all my actual favorites had already been eliminated. She was the lowest common denominator.

I also took a while to warm up to Sims 2 Pleasantview at first I created my own version of the Sims neighborhood, but eventually I warmed up to the Sims 2 version.

I restarted Pleasantview many times. In an old Pleasantview version, she married with Don and had two children with him. In another, Don left her. Cassandra married Darren. They had many children. (I think 4 or more?)
In the most recent version, she married Don and had two children with him. Then, she caught Don cheating and divorced from him. Cassandra then married Darren and had 3 children with him. As said, I restarted PV many times and I played Cassie in different versions.

I really don't know why she's my favourite sim but something is special about her. She's always been my favourite sim. Perhaps, it's because of her pigtails and glasses... I don't know... but something is special about her.

I've played Cassandra so many times. In one of them, she was more book smart than people smart. Nobody wanted to come to the scary Goth house, and she didn't have much experience. She did marry Don, but she wised up and kicked him out when she caught him cheating. She went on to become a brilliant scientist, and the mother of several kids (Don and Darren's).

In another version, Mortimer was very old fashioned. Cassandra had to get married in order to inherit. She wanted the money, so she and Don made an arrangement.

I usually just let her wear that hairstyle. There are children to play with and experiments to do, so she just doesn't care about fussing with her hair.

You guys have heard my Pleasantview stories a million times and I still am trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing with them. I think my problem is that the way Maxis set the characters up that there is a thousand different things you can do with them but yet at the same time you don't. It seems to be partly set-in-stone and partly not. Like how when you open their households for the first time, it sets up a scenario and like guides you for a little bit on what to do but sometimes you just don't want to do it. I know you can ignore it, but it's pretty hard for me to do so as my OCD kicks in and I just HAVE to do it.

I'm still trying to 'figure out' Cassandra Goth. Why would she wear such an outfit? She's a scientist and I don't really see her as a childish Sim, as I see her family as like the serious yet weird family, I suppose. Why would she fall for Don Lothario? It's sort of obvious the way he acts and dresses that he is a womanizer and I am pretty sure she would be smarter than to fall for his advances. I would assume she would at least be a LITTLE bit suspicious that her own mother was last seen on the balcony of his condo!



At least, that's my theory so..