Nirvana

Round 22: Summer 2015

Principal Betsy Carmody is 44, Claudia and Victoria Kirby, Finn Romilly and Jacob Weaver are all 14, Patience Draper, Josie Benton and Maia Novak are all 13 and Calvin and Troy Clarke, Nick Moretti and Aaron Novak are all 12.

It's also Sullivan High School's largest enrollment ever - 11 students! There are no more students due this round but there are 3 more next round, with no graduations scheduled!



When Betsy gets all of her students into the technology room, she realises there's no longer enough equipment to go round. Come 2017, Betsy may have to see about hiring an extra teacher.

Nick made sure he was first into the room so he could claim one of the robot crafting stations for himself. There's a disused one at his mother's house but he's living with his dad right now, where there's no space for a robot crafting station.

Nick's the only one who's really interested in technology class but being a high achiever, Finn's giving it his best go anyway. Victoria's grabbed the station beside Finn's. Not only because he's her boyfriend but because he kind of looks like he knows what he's doing!

Two years ago, it was all blushes and awkward conversations but Finn and Victoria are much more comfortable with each other now.

On the other side of the library, Josie sees someone watching her out of the corner of her eye. She knows it's Troy. He's been following her around all morning, so who else would it be?

"Are you going to sit down or just stand there staring at me all day? It's getting old!"

Embarrassed and a little discouraged, Troy takes a seat beside Josie and gets on with his work.

Ever the conscientious student, Maia decides to skip study period in the library and goes to check if lunch is being served yet.

It is - it always is - but the downside of heading to the cafeteria while everyone else is in class is a very lonely lunch.

Calvin is Maia's exact opposite. He loves studying. He loves socialising too, so he doesn't even particularly mind his classmates laughing and chatting in the background.

And flirting. There's always a bit of that going on too. The library seems to bring that out in people.

Patience joins Finn and Victoria for lunch, where they appear to be completely oblivious to her very existence.

Eyes only for each other, those two!

Josie chooses the least disgusting looking meal from the counter and goes to sit in the only seat left, which is unfortunately, right across from her not-so-secret admirer Troy.

Who does not shut up for the entire time. No wonder it's taking him so long to eat that chili.

Patience and Jacob are the other couple at Sullivan this year. Patience is a year younger than Jacob (and Finn and Victoria) but she and he have already gone a lot further than anyone else at school.

Josie is the only one who knows and Patience has sworn her to secrecy.

Maia has made it her mission to kiss a boy and she's chosen her target - Aaron, one of her very best friends from primary school.

She's laying it on a bit thick, honestly. The joke wasn't that funny.

She figures Aaron will go for it, for sure - they get along so well - but she is brutally rebuffed! Well, Aaron is actually pretty nice about it but Maia is pretty cut up over it anyway. Is it her pimples? She's tried that cream and the pimples remain.

Maia doesn't know it but no, it's not her pimples.

Aaron just doesn't like girls that way. He's got lots of friends that are girls but even at 12, he knows that's as close as he'll ever get to a girl.

Fortunately for Maia, she likes a lot of other boys.

She kisses Nick right in front of Aaron, perhaps hoping to make him jealous. He doesn't look too happy but seeing he's gay, he's more likely to be jealous of Maia than of Nick.

After seeing all this kissing, something stirs in Josie and she plants a big one on Troy Clarke. That's probably not going to discourage him pining after her all the time but that's Josie's problem to deal with now!

So that leaves poor Claudia Kirby as the only teen in all of Sullivan who hasn't been kissed yet. She doesn't really have anyone she wants to kiss but it'd be nice to get all that first kiss anxiety out of the way anyway!

Notes:

• I just realised Maia and Aaron have the same surname which is a little creepy, considering her infatuation with him. Aaron's paternal grandfather is Maia's uncle. Aaron's dad is Maia's cousin. Using real-life terms, I have no idea what that would make them. First cousins, once removed? Something like that. If the game doesn't consider them related, I don't either but Maia and Aaron obviously aren't going to happen anyway.
• All the romancing was autonomous, except for Aaron and Calvin. Their first kiss was autonomous though. I missed it, I reshot that one with the "Suck Face" interaction. It was a glitchy First Kiss anyway - the hearts wouldn't go away from Aaron and I had to pick him up and take him away from them (they were swirling around in the hallway for a couple of Sim hours afterwards!).
• Aaron and Calvin are both gay, not bisexual (and now it's probably clear that Calvin is not getting his LTW - can you imagine doing that with a straight Sim, let alone a gay one?), so poor Maia really does have no chance. I've known Aaron and Calvin were gay since they were toddlers but wasn't planning on them discovering it themselves so early! I actually InSim'ed them out of love a couple of times but they kept kissing and falling back in love, so I just let them be in the end.
• All these kisses may lead to couples down the road and they may not but none of these kids are couples yet (apart from Finn and Victoria and Jacob and Patience). I actually haven't checked chemistry very closely yet so that's another thing I'll have to wait and see about.