More Awesome Than You!

Since I found out recently that the pictures on the loading screen tell a tale about relationships in the house, I've been checking them all and I noticed one yesterday that puzzled me somewhat.

There are two couples sharing a house, namely Brandi Broke's son Vincent (father Vincent Walter, the headmaster) and their adopted daughter, Alison (Vincent's adopted sister).  Vincent is married to Marsha Bruenig (and yes, she's an adult now) and Alison is married to Jimmy Phoenix.  Alison & Jimmy have a baby and Marsha is newly-pregnant.  In the loading screen, Alison is stood in the forefront waving and Jimmy is behind her with his arms folded.  Vincent is next holding his niece and Marsha is behind him with her arms around him.  Alison & Jimmy have no bolts or anything because Alison doesn't like men, she sort of got heavily into women just before NL as a result of Lizzlove's woo-hoo bed ...  All four of them are smiling, although in Alison's case it's probably more of a smirk.  She's Aries with only 3 in Nice and she's basically very self-centred.

Anyway, I can see what it's saying about the two male/female relationships, but why is Vincent holding the baby?  OK, it's his niece, but he's not a Family Sim.  He's Popularity, same as Jimmy, Marsha is Knowledge and Alison is Fortune.  I know Popularity Sims are meant to make good Uncles, but it seems odd that neither parent is holding the baby.  I am assuming it's saying that neither of them could really care less about being parents and are more than willing to foist their kid off on someone else, Vincent presumably being a good choice because he's family.  Anyone got any better ideas?

Feel free to discuss any other loading screen pics, I find them rather intriguing and it's interesting to watch them change as the relationships alter. 

I've noticed randomness with baby holding too.
I've also found my teen sims back to back with their arms folded, like they're angry with each other. Also seems random, as I wasn't aware of any conflicts in any of those cases...

if there's a teen in the house, I think I always see them holding any toddler siblings - not the parents...

I just always thought they were random and didn't really mean anything, but I would love to be proved wrong

I've had the uncle holding the toddler while the parents weren't even in the picture! Of course I play freakishly big houses, so that probably has something to do with it.

The loading screen pictures are vague at best. Poses are essentially random, but generally if there's a married couple, they'll be posted in the center together. Which one is depicted so is essentially arbitrary, and everyone else will be arbitrarily placed around them, in similarly random poses. Neither the poses nor the placements consistently signify anything, contrary to Gali's claims.

I just find them to be random as well.  I know some people say they signify things but I haven't found that to be true.

I've also noticed that anytime there is a teen and toddler in the house, the teen will be holding the toddler  Most of the time they look pleased to be doing so..like aww I love my little brother/sister.

.

i've seen babies kneeling too. the parents are hugging and kissing each other.

My weirdest loading screen by far, and notice how Don is cradling the toddler:

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/new%20album/Lothariofamilyloadingscreen.jpg)

Don't know if it's just the angle of it, but the toddler Don is holding looks bigger than it should be.  In fact, with what it's wearing it looks like some sort of deformed child! 

Going back to the loading screens, they definitely mean something sometimes.  I have a couple that fell out because he caught her cavorting in the WooHoo bed with a strange woman (forgot it was there when I installed NL) and he stands there scowling like mad at her, whereas before they had their arms around each other.  I daresay it'll go back to that once their relationship is patched-up, but it isn't yet.

I always just thought they were mostly random. I think some things, like the sim's personality, might affect them a bit (usually playful sims do the bunny ears, for instance), but generally I wouldn't read deeper significance into them.

I think it is entirely Random even in overstuffed houses the poses and who is on the loading screen differes each time.My oddest loding screen featured  a family with 2 newborns and instead of the parents holding the baboess they were hugging each other and one baby was on it's knees and the other was sitting down.

The only thing I've noticed that wasn't fairly random is when the Sims in the household get angry at each other. I rarely had bad relationships in a house unless it was for a plot, so I really noticed when the loading picture changed on one. The youngest son in the house, Heath, was a teenager and his mother had gotten married to another man (she wasn't ever married to his father).

This was in the days before the wonderful romance hack which I miss so much, and it was a small house so his bed was in the master bedroom with the double bed. His mom and stepdad were asleep and he got distressed and took a relationship hit with them when he went in and saw this. Later on the loading screen, where he used to be smiling with his arms crossed, he then stood apart scowling with his back turned to the rest of the family, assumingly because of the sudden lower relationship with them. (I never played Pleasantview but I seem to recall seeing Lilith in this pose at the beginning).

Other than this, I've never noticed a change in the relationship screen besides the usual random poses. Now that one of my Sims - having been stuck in red aspiration while I wasn't playing that house - has ended up picking fights with most of her family members, I bet she'll have that pose now too. I'm curious to see if I can get adults to do something different too.

I did have one loading screen after an elder got pregnant via Risky Woohoo, twins so I de-aged her to let her have them, and once I'd turned her back to elder, neither she or anyone else in the house, including her lover and her teenaged son, would hold the babies. Instead, they sat in toddler poses on the "floor". It seems only adults will hold babies in the loading screen, whereas teenagers will always hold their toddler relatives, and if a couple's married they won't hold the toddlers either...

Yup, I've noticed this - even when the teen is the parent of the baby! Lilith just got pregnant to Dirk Dreamer and had a baby girl. In the loading screen Mary Sue is holding the baby and she and Daniel are gazing down adoringly at it, even though the baby is actually Lilith's. Lilith is still sulking over in the corner, and Angela is being her usual suck-up self.....