Fanon:Barb family

The Barb family is a family in SimVille. It consists of Serge Barb, a military man who loves to fight and stir up trouble in the neighbourhood.

Original MTS post
Barbs of Steel!

The Barb Family

The Barb family consists of only one Sim — Serge Barb. If you frequent the Bloopers and Funny Sim Pics or the Random Picture Thread, you've probably seen Serge before.

Serge existed as a mean military man in my very first neighbourhood (the one I lost to corruption), along with his wife Gloria (who fell in love with a Servo and divorced him), his teenaged daughter Tina (who hates him), and his youngest son Kyle (who still kinda likes him). While the rest of the family faded into the background, Serge was the most fun to play with, and I kept him in every hood I made thereafter as the "town troublemaker". Even though I have never played Strangetown before, I admit that I got the idea for him from General Buzz Grunt.



Serge Barb



Serge loves to fight, but little does he know that life in the military isn't all about fighting.

Serge indeed follows in General Grunt's footsteps, being in the military career as a Junior Officer. He has 6 neat points, 4 outgoing points, 9 active points, 4 playful points, and a pitiful 1 nice point. Serge enjoys going around the neighbourhood and pissing people off, particularly on community lots. He often likes to go out and either pick bones with old faces, or find new arrivals and townies he's never met before and annoying them until their relationship is low enough for a fight to start.

And Serge does love to fight.



(Mrs. CrumpleBottom looks extra spooky tonight.)

Serge has 10 body skill points, meaning that most Sims lose fights against him. The more athletic Sims in town have a chance against him, though.



Serge is enemies with almost all the playable Sims in town, and more and more townies are starting to hate him. He has the lowest Reputation in the hood, and it's not uncommon for disgruntled townies to get his bosses to demote him. His worst enemy is Amar Newbie, the polar opposite of Serge. Serge isn't angry at Amar for being wealthy, though; he's angry at all Servos in general because his old wife fell in love with one, and since Amar is the best Servo in town (hands down), Serge likes to pick on him the most.



Serge's mischief isn't limited to fights, though. It's not uncommon for him to show up at other Sims' houses to kick their trash can or to steal their newspaper. As a trade-off, other Sims do the same to him.





Serge is officially banned from Amar's owned community lots, although that doesn't stop Serge from getting in the way.



Serge's abode

Serge lives in a shabby house on a 1x1 lot next to St. Simmin Park, but it's not because he's poor.



The ground floor has room for a parking spot for his pickup truck. Stair-climbing is mandatory to get up (on the other hand, the Newbies don't have an elevator either), and Serge believes that stairs are an easy and effective way of getting exercise.



The second floor has his kitchen, dining table, weight machine, and punching bag. There's also a bookshelf for Serge to fuel his knowledge aspiration on.



Third floor has his bedroom and a bathroom.



The roof is home to his chess table and a telescope. When not fighting, Serge has an appreciation for the stars...



...and spying on Sims.



Conveniently, the Newbies live directly down the street from him, so he has nice voyeur access to their home.



Amar has an NID of 1, so he's always the shoving Sim.



A brief glimpse of life in the Barb family

Serge needs to leave by 6AM in order to get to work on time, so Serge's up by 4AM...



...only to find that someone's been digging up his lot overnight!



Serge needs to get to work, so he exercises, eats breakfast, and hops into his pickup truck. He will have to deal with this mess later.







The newspaper delivery boy drops off the morning paper. I move the newspaper up into the house and move the old newspaper down, just so the newspaper thief would (inadvertently) help Serge out a bit.

Like today!



Serge gets home and quickly cleans up the disastrous mess in his yard.



Serge has two friends — Jessica and Matthew Picaso. Both of them being in the military career as well is a bonus for Serge, and he enjoys chatting on the phone with both of them.



Serge has two loves in his life, aside from his only friends. One is the weight machine. Even though Serge's a mean guy, he's a fitness enthusiast and he knows his stuff. If you got on his good side at the gym, he'll push you like a good workout partner would.



The other is his small, miserable, but humble garden. While the Newbies have two such gardens, tending to them is a huge chore as they're burdened by the fact that they need to sell the produce in excellent condition — or they will have to be discarded. Serge gardens for fun, and if the neighbours don't ruin his plants, he gets a nice meal out of it.





Serge isn't a slob, unlike the Newbies, so he keeps his house clean and tidy even though it's not that beautiful or impressive to begin with.





After he's done with the affairs in the house, he can either retire to bed, or go out for a night of fun!

Tonight he's decided to go out. It's a Friday so lots are out on the community lots. Serge's gonna have a lot of fun picking on people.

First off, though, why not go to the small 24/7 corner shop?



The shop doesn't see an awful lot of traffic, mostly intended for the people from the nearby bus stop to buy some supplies before or after the lengthy journey to the train station that leads into the city. Tonight there are a few townies out, many of whom have never met him before!

Why hello, my name's Serge... say, is that a llamabug on your shirt? What's a llamabug? ...boing! Made you look!



You smell like — and belong in — a llama petting zoo!



It looks like you haven't showered in a week! Here, let me give you one right now!



Eventually someone will have enough and start a fight. Or they'll slap Serge and he becomes furious enough to start a fight himself.



Alan Greaves (internally named Cooper Garth) became Serge's first victim tonight.







And Serge wins!



Serge also argued with Katy McGaw over how dumb her pink dress was.



Conclusion

Serge may be fun and funny to play with, but he should also be a reminder that behind every mean person, there is a soft side to them. For Serge, that's his workouts and his gardening. I should also think of some nice backstory for him to explain his behaviour. While Serge may not be well liked around town, he's not a wholly bad person. For one, I remember seeing him console his son back in my corrupted first neighbourhood when he was crying. Kyle's not around anymore, but maybe Evan Newbie will be able to find more answers once he gets a little older.

Hoped you enjoyed this post! This was a lot easier to make than the last one, and a lot more fun, to be honest! Using the slowMotion cheat is really cool!

Original post

Outtakes
The following images were cut from the final version of the forum post.