Climbing up the walls

Round 22: Autumn 2016

last update/next update/Rose's next update

Rose Draper is 21, Gordon Nott and Ione Romilly are both 20 and Lia Novak and Olivia Nihill are both 19.
(Evan is 27)

Five or six months after they started dating, Lia and Gordon finally had the talk she'd been dreading. He'd been asking and asking and Lia finally had to tell him she wouldn't be having sex until after she was married.

Gordon's not quite sure he's on board - everyone their age has sex, right? - but he agrees not to pressure her any more. There's not really much else he can do.

Okay, well, he still checks every now and then, just in case Lia's changed her mind!

But Gordon's just going to have to be content with kissing for a while.

After all, some people aren't even getting that right now. Rose's girlfriend Joanna is in Cape Elizabeth and won't be back home for a long time and there'll be no kissing or anything else for Rose until she does.

It's been so long since Rose slept in her own dorm room that she's lost the key and she frequently wakes up to find some random squatter sitting at her desk or, even worse, watching her as she sleeps. She really must get another key!

It was neatnik Joanna who insisted on Rose actually getting out of her pyjamas when she didn't have class. Left to her own devices now, Rose lazes around in her PJs all day.

Rose is definitely missing Joanna though. International phone calls are expensive but sometimes, they just need to hear the other's voice - it's a morale booster for both of them. Rose practically has the phone glued to her ear these days. Not only do she and Joanna call each other when their budgets allow but her dad, her stepmum and even Joanna's dad like to check up on her and see how she's doing too.

Since he's been living at Novak Hall, Gordon doesn't feel like he's had as much opportunity to enjoy nature as he did when he was living at home. He makes a point to head back to town as often as he can to hang out in the many parks. It's one of these trips that he meets Jamie.

Jamie and Gordon get to talking and she asks if he'd join her for a coffee. There's no harm in drinking coffee with someone!

Gordon is really attracted to Jamie though and it probably would have been better for everyone if he'd recognised that and said no.

He didn't though and so he and Jamie go from meeting to making out in the park in mere hours.

When he gets home, he feels guilty enough to pay extra special attention to Lia but not guilty enough to put Jamie completely out of his mind. He's definitely planning on seeing her again.

Ione and Evan took a little while to get started but since then, they've been very happy. They've been dating around a year now.

They haven't really talked about marriage yet, though Ione really wishes Evan would broach the topic. She's only 20 though, so maybe she's a little young to be thinking about marriage anyway.

At the very least, Evan's already asked her to move in with him after she graduates and maybe that's enough of a commitment for now. He's talking about getting their own place together, not living in his share house. The prospect of that is really exciting for both of them.

After a year of watching her dormmates' fairly active love lives, Olivia has had enough of being single. Maybe some would call it pathetic but she's been looking online for dates. She's tried the bar thing and that was a failure. Olivia's not sure if she knows anyone who's started a long-lasting relationship at a bar anyway.

There's one guy in particular who she's been chatting to a lot and it's progressed to conversations over the phone now. His name is Steve. None of her dormmates know that but they're all dying to find out who she's been talking to lately. Steve and Olivia haven't met in person yet. She thinks it could lead somewhere but she doesn't want to jinx it by talking it up before it happens. She's going to take it slow with Steve.

Gordon and Jamie though...things are progressing pretty damn fast with them. Every afternoon when Lia is at class, Jamie comes over. Gordon and Lia aren't even engaged. If they stay together, it could be years before he has sex again and no guy can last years! That's how Gordon is choosing to rationalise it to himself anyway. He's not really thinking with his head.

On this particular afternoon, they have an audience. Gordon seems to have forgotten that Lia has a spare key to his dorm room. She sees Gordon and Jamie together and is absolutely livid.

At a time like this, the person Lia really wants to talk to is her mother but her best friend Ione is there to console her.

Or at least try to console her. Lia just keeps sobbing and Ione's not really sure what she can do.

Maybe Lia just needs some time to mope around. For the next few days, that's all she wants to do.

Steve and Olivia finally agreed to meet in person. They meet in Exeter, in the middle of the day and in a public place, just in case Steve turns out to be a total creep. He's not but Olivia's worried she might have built this up too much in her mind because for the first time in her life, she's at a loss for words. Steve seems a bit unsure of what to say too.

Thankfully, once they move outside, Steve starts talking and the awkward small talk makes way for bigger topics. Like world peace.

Olivia thinks Steve is hot and she feels a little bold near the end of their date, so she tells him so.

He really is quite the charmer! The jacket though...well, Steve's just started dating a budding young fashion designer. Olivia's sure she can do something for him!

That same night, Ione decides that what Lia needs is an evening out with the girls. The shops are open late tonight in Exeter, so they head over to H&M to find Lia something new to wear.

Rose tries to take Lia's mind off Gordon by reminding her of all her accomplishments that weren't in any way thanks to Gordon. She completely aced her freshman year all on her own, after all!

Lia appreciates the effort but she still can't forget what happened.

Maybe some drinks will help!

Well, no, not really. Lia ends up talking about Gordon most of the night but it's good for her be out, wearing something other than PJs and hanging out with her girlfriends. She actually does feel a little bit better!

The sight that greets Lia when she gets back to the dorm is not a welcome one.

Ione can't believe Gordon could be so insensitive as to have Jamie over to the dorm again. Gordon is already feeling regretful, so he gets defensive and tells Ione to mind her own business.

He runs over to Lia to try to apologise but she won't listen. She and Gordon are over and that's that.

Gordon refuses to give up on her though. He knows how it looks - it looks like he's not sorry he did it, just sorry he got caught.

He doesn't know how to make Lia believe that but he really is sorry.

Sleeping with Jamie was probably the dumbest thing he's ever done in his entire life and he's hoping and praying he hasn't damaged his relationship with Lia irreparably. So far though, it doesn't look good.

For their second date, Steve and Olivia meet up in the day time again. Not in case he's creepy. This time, they just felt like a walk in the park.

Every time they talk, they find they have more in common. Like the fact that Steve is artistic too! Not in the same way as Olivia - Steve is a musician.

They're both really enjoying that fun stage of getting to know each other right now. They talked so long on the phone before they met that it's hard to believe they still have anything left to talk about but the well doesn't seem to have run dry just yet.

Olivia suggests they lie on the grass and watch the clouds, which gets them a few strange looks. Not that either of them care - Olivia is entranced by the clouds and Steve is entranced by Olivia.

When she gets back to the dorm, Olivia is feeling a little giddy. Out of the corner of her eye, Ione sees her enter the workshop and thinks "Did she really just skip in here?!"

And yes, she did! It's not like she's in love with Steve or anything - how many people fall in love on their second date? - but she's got a serious crush on this guy and just had to tell someone.

Ione's thrilled for her, of course. Olivia kissed a couple of boys in high school but it never went further than that - as far as Ione knows, her first date with Steve was her first date ever!

Among all this falling in love (or in crush, at least) and out of love, Rose was quietly plugging away and finishing her senior year.

Her dad and her sister both come up for Rose's graduation, though Patience is hard to pin down. She's never been to a college dorm before and runs off to explore immediately.

She does stand still for long enough to have a family portrait taken with her dad and her newly graduated sister.

Random pic:

Just because I love my park and I think I've only shown it at night. It's just Central Park Pavillion from Apartment Life, except I had this crazy idea that a park should have...I don't know, maybe some greenery? Some flowers, perhaps? And I love the background, with the skyscrapers.


I also love Olivia and I took way too many pics of her and Steve.

Notes:

• Title is from the Radiohead song of the same name.
• So Gordon and Lia: you may have deduced that Lia drew the Do the dumping card this round but as it turns out, I may have broken them up anyway. When Abigail and Jesse went on their honeymoon (which you didn't see and won't, because I was mainly just testing out my beach campground), I spotted Gordon with Jamie. I was surprised because he's a Family Sim and they generally stay faithful with ACR. I had his cheating thing set to Totally Faithful but I guess because he wasn't actually officially in a relationship with Lia (as in, I forgot to make them go steady), Lia wasn't considered his "spouse" so he had it off with Jamie instead. I was contemplating why Lia and Gordon would break up and Gordon handed the reason to me on a silver platter. Lia walking in on Jamie and Gordon was totally unplanned too. I actually thought Lia was at class and was going to have her discover what was going on by finding the flowers Jamie had left for Gordon.
• Gordon and Jamie have three bolts but his chemistry with Lia is about 20 points higher. Once she caught him cheating, all his wants for Jamie rolled away and were replaced by wants for Lia. Lia has the want to fall in love with Gordon and when she was on her night out with the girls, she got the want to talk to Gordon, hug Gordon, play with Gordon. They're both very hung up on each other.
• Evan rolled the want to get engaged to Ione once but it rolled away and it hasn't rolled back again. I'm hoping it does because I love when both Sims have the want.
• Steve and Olivia are really cute. They have two bolts but I checked Steve in SimPE and I think they could turn out to be three bolters. He's turned off by creative women (which Olivia is, obviously) but I'm going to change that. Why would a Music & Dance Sim be turned off by creativity? It makes no sense at all.
• Next, I'm planning on finally sending Joanna off on the first leg of her trip. She's been gone for six months already in game, so I'd say it's time! :)
• Grades: Rose graduated with an A+ and a 3.6 GPA and all the other students got A+ and are maintaining 4.0 GPAs. I've got a group of brainiacs on my hands!
• I was looking at my age-up lists the other day (I have it sorted out until 2020!) and I realised that I'm not going to have any new college students until after Lia and Olivia graduate. It'll be right after they graduate but for the first time in a long time, there'll be no overlap.