Fanon:Mercutio Monty (C.Syde)

Mercutio Monty is a well known resident in my player stories in The Sims 2 in Veronaville. He is the son to the late Claudio and Olivia Monty, the younger brother of Romeo Monty, the older brother of the deceased Unborn Baby Monty, the nephew to Bianca and Antonio Monty, the younger cousin of Beatice and Benedick Monty, the older cousin to Magnus and Stacey Monty, and the grandson of Isabella and the late Patrizio Monty.

Mercutio is a few days younger than his pre-made counterpart. He started off as a Teenager with 6 days from being an Adult. In my player stories Mercutio is 10 days from being an Adult, which makes him the younger brother of Romeo. The reason why I decided to change their birth orders is because Mercutio has fewer Memories than Romeo, and he doesn't seem to have had as much life experience. Their NIDs also state that Romeo was created first. Although Patrizio's memories state otherwise, I still decided to make Mercutio the younger brother of Romeo. When Mercutio grows into an Adult, he will be voiced by David Boat.

At the start of the game, the feud between the Capps and the Montys was still at large. But the traditions hadn't stopped the younger generation from crossing the boundaries and falling in love. Mercutio and his friend Puck Summerdream both had crushes on Hermia Capp and vice versa. Given that Hermia had two crushes on her hands, I needed to decide which one she was going to keep, and which to let go. Puck was the obvious choice for Hermia as they had a stronger Relationship than Mercutio and Hermia did. So I brought Mercutio and Hermia's relationship down so that Puck was free to Go Steady with Hermia without interference. But Mercutio and Puck's relationship did not suffer, and I promised that Mercutio would get his chance.

In late January 2012, I decided to have Romeo invite his girlfriend Juliette Capp over. I was unaware of Juliette's hatred towards Mercutio at the time, so thankfully they didn't see each other on this occasion. But then Mercutio did get a surprise visit that was worse than running into Juliette ever could be. When Juliette's younger brother Tybalt Capp realized that she was missing, he guessed correctly that Juliette had gone to visit Romeo. But that wasn't the key reason why Tybalt went after her, oh no! When I saw Tybalt walking on to Monty Ranch I knew immediately why he had come. I had already read the information about the Capp and Monty families of Veronaville including the bit where Tybalt would come over and attack Mercutio. I had asked myself - what if Tybalt lost. Of course I didn't know at the time that Tybalt was the toughest and meanest of the Capp family youths. He went straight over to Mercutio and attacked him. Tybalt emerged as the winner - no surprises there. Romeo lectured Tybalt, but for all the attention Tybalt took, Romeo might just as well not have lectured him at all.

However the Romantic Spell that Titania and Oberon Summerdream had cast over Veronaville's youth, and my powers as a Watcher seemed to be doing their jobs. Because Mercutio soon rang Tybalt up on the Telephone and they exchanged polite conversations which eventually lead to Mercutio and Tybalt becoming good friends. Six months later Mercutio reciprocated the crush that Hermia's younger cousin Miranda Capp had on him. They went steady just before the end of 2012. On a different computer I was playing the Summerdream Family household and Mercutio and Tybalt got into another Fight (I later repeated this fight on my computer). I didn't bother to watch the fight because I was already convinced that Mercutio didn't stand a chance. But later on I checked Tybalt's memories and one of the more recent memories clearly said - 'Lost a fight with Mercutio Monty'. On my computer this was seen as an excellent victory for Mercutio, and it was then that Tybalt finally saw Mercutio as an equal.

Trivia

 * While I never had a problem with Mercutio's messy hairstyle, it could be rather irritating that it covered part of his face including one of his eyes. When I discovered the 'side swoop' hairstyle from the Nightlife Expansion pack, I saw it as the perfect hairstyle to replace his default one.
 * Based on my deductions and gameplay experience in the Sims 2, two Sims with the same number of body points have a 50% chance of beating each other in a fight. For every additional body point one Sim has, their chances are increased by 5% and the other Sim's chances are decreased by 5%. By default, Mercutio has one body point and Tybalt has ten. So the chances of Tybalt winning were 95% and the chances of Mercutio winning were 5%. So technically Mercutio still had a chance of winning, as proved from the second fight they had in my player stories.
 * Despite being a Popularity Sim, Mercutio has several qualities that one would expect of a Romance or Pleasure Sim. For this reason, I will give him one of those two as a sub Aspiration once I have installed The Sims 2: FreeTime.
 * I consider Mercutio to be a "good" character, due to his declining interest in the family feud.
 * Mercutio's head-shot displayed above is similar to the default (minus the different hairstyle) except that his appearance is closer to what it looks like in-game. The face is less polygonal and the mouth is wider and straighter.