Thursday 21 March 2013

Major leagues


Round 34: March 2040 (Autumn)

(Louisa and Jessica are 20 and Austin is 19)


Narrated by Declan Romilly

We’ve just started classes again for the semester and Justin has been spending most of his spare time at the natural history museum.



Louisa usually tags along with him. You’d think she’d be sick of it by now but she’s used to Justin and his obsession with the natural world, after 5 years of dating.

Justin spent a good portion of last year helping Louisa get off academic probation, so I think she’s just enjoying doing something together that’s not studying.

They haven’t had a whole lot of opportunity to do that until recently.

Justin is only a sophomore but he’s already decided he wants to work at the museum after graduation.

His other main option would be working at the science faculty here on campus but he’s much more interested in bringing science to the general population as opposed to working in academia.

He’ll probably need some kind of post-graduate qualification to do that which means he'll be in the same boat as Xavier and me after graduation. I'll hopefully be spending two years doing my Master's in Architecture, while Xavier is aiming for law school.

I wish Austin had come to university with us but he was just never interested at all. We still see him all the time. Either he comes here to go somewhere on campus or we hang out when we go back home to visit our families on the weekend.

He still doesn’t have a girlfriend. He hasn’t really met anyone he’s super into yet, so he wants to keep himself available, in case he does.

In the meantime, Austin is just planning on keeping everything very casual.

Not that that stops Jessica and Louisa attempting to play matchmaker and set Austin up with their friends.

They haven’t been very successful yet. Austin is pretty happy with his lifestyle the way it is.

Austin and I are very different in that way. I’m not really interested in dating around.

I don’t know if Jessica and I will end up together for life but it’s been almost three years now. So far, so good.

We’ve met each others’ families and we’re looking towards the future together, even if we’re not positive what it holds yet.

We’re both very committed to our classes, so if one of us can’t go out because we’re snowed in with work, the other understands.

Often though, we’ll just head to the library together to work on our respective assignments. It beats studying alone in my dorm room and we get to take coffee breaks together.

I still have plenty of solo study sessions, unfortunately, because Jessica is much busier this year than last year.

She’s a junior now, which means she has been able to take up an apprenticeship with a chef at a local restaurant, so she works nights sometimes.

Her dad offered her a position at his restaurant but she doesn’t want anyone going easy on her and she’s pretty sure her dad would. So she’s at a place called Zoe’s instead.

She’s really worn out but she likes the restaurant a lot. She’s learning more every time she walks into that kitchen.

I’m happy she’s getting so much out of the apprenticeship but at the same time, I do miss her when I can't see her as much.

Last year, Xavier had a huge crush on a girl named Elisa and we all thought he was working his way up to asking her out.

He never did though and instead, he set his sights on another girl named Ashlee.

She seems sweet. Kind of shy, though not quite to Xavier’s extent. I think she might have been the one who actually made the first move when they started hanging out.

It’s been almost five years since Lauren broke up with him, so I’m glad he’s found someone he wants to be with again.

They’ve only been going out for a month or so but they’ve condensed an awful lot of dates into that short amount of time.

Xavier’s natural inclination is to hang out on his own at home a lot but Ashlee has been getting him out of his dorm more and he feels better for it.

She hasn’t declared a major yet but since she’s been with Xavier, she’s considering Literature.

Xavier is studying Literature as an avenue into law school but Ashlee thinks she might actually like to be a writer.

That’s part of what Xavier loves about her. He wouldn’t mind publishing a novel one day himself. He’s always been too nervous to show his writing to anyone though.

Ashlee also gets along amazingly well with Justin, which is really important to Xavier. Our family is huge but still close, so you're in for some trouble if you start dating one of us and end up clashing with our relatives.

She hasn’t met the rest of the family yet, except me, but Xavier is very keen to change that. He wants to invite Ashlee home for Easter.

Easter is only a few weeks away now but it seems like so much longer. I have a ton of work to do before then.

We all do. The good thing about that is that it means the weeks until our break are just going to fly by, rather than dragging.

Extras:


I'm loving the face templates I'm using! Ashlee has such a perfect little doll's face. But there are also some less perfect but still human looking faces wandering around and I'm really enjoying the variety. 

Notes:
  • Title is from Major Leagues by Pavement.
  • Justin and Declan are both maintaining 4.0 GPAs. Xavier's previous GPA was 3.6, which I've been unable to replicate, even with InSim's Education Adjuster. I'm going to try again now that I have College Harder Grades in. 
  • Aw, I miss Austin! I still haven't played him properly as an adult, so I'm looking forward to doing that. I think it's slim pickings in the ladies department for him, I have to say! He hasn't had much chemistry with anyone so far. When I do get around to him, by the way, he'll have his proper hair!
  • Jessica's restaurant that she is apprenticing at is one that I downloaded from Sims Community Project. I'm pretty sure it's featured in more than one update since I started blogging again, so you have likely caught a glimpse or two of it.
  • I was actually planning on letting Xavier get together with Elisa, from Sullivan 1.0 but I forgot to export her! In fact, she is one of TWO relatively prominent townies I forgot to export. :( But he likes Ashlee a lot and she was the only dormie in non-fugly clothing (I need Christianlov's clothing rack back!), so I am satisfied by this pairing. She really does seem to get along with everyone. I'm sure I will get some weird dormie enemy/constant fighting situation eventually, but I don't think Ashlee will be involved in it. 
  • Reminder: Declan is first cousins with Xavier and Justin. Declan's father is Finn is X & J's mother Ione's younger brother. I'm never sure how many of you are aware of the family ties in my hood outside of immediate families, so I try to remind you where it might be relevant. 

14 comments:

  1. Its good to see they are all working hard! Even if it has taken some of them a while... I'm glad Xavier has finally found someone new, it has been 5 years as you say! Ashlee is adorable, which defaults are you using? I'm glad to see things are still going well with Declan and Jessica and Justin and Louisa! It's all down to Austin now! Haha- can't wait for an update on him!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Heh, yeah, I don't know why but Xavier is working a lot harder in Sullivan 2.0 than before. I'm impressed, because he does want to go to law school.

      I'm using these defaults. If you poke around on that LJ a bit, you should see Part 2 of the templates. There are a TON, as you'll see, so she split them up. It took me like an hour and a half to go through them all and decide which ones I wanted! But it was worth it. :)

      I have no idea what Austin will end up doing! He knows where he wants to go career-wise but his personal life is far more of a mystery, even to me! I'm very excited to play him finally!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  2. I wondered if Ashlee was a replacement for a forgotten townie :) they are cute together. Declan and Jessica are adorable together, i need to go back through the archives, i cant remember seeing Zoe's! Do you remember where you found Louisa's shirt?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I was sure I extracted poor Elisa! I'm not so bummed about her, because she and Xavier never really got started. I'm more disappointed about the other forgotten townie, because that will have a greater effect on the story.

      You shouldn't have to go too far back to see Zoe's. I forget what update I used it in but it's the only restaurant I have at the moment (well, I put Tanja's Claudette in, so now I have two). :D

      Louisa's lovely top is by needlecream. I always wondered where they were from when I was still on Sullivan 1.0 and then happened to come across them recently. I have a few sims wearing different colours of them, because I just don't have a lot of clothing in right now!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
    2. Can you still access your old simpe file to extract the other townie?

      Delete
    3. Probably. But by the time I'd thought of that, I'd already started thinking about how to write around this townie's disappearance, so I think I'm just going to go with it. :)

      Delete
  3. I forgot those three were cousins, but I figured it out relatively quickly after Declan kept on saying "we". I'm proud I remembered before being reminded.
    I was wondering where Elisa was. Oh well. At least Ashllee seems nice too. You've got me interested in who else went missing.
    Glad to see the couples going strong!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Probably a good rule of thumb is that Justin, Xavier and their sisters are cousins with approximately 75% of the hood! Filippo and Maria ended up with sooo many grandkids!

      Ashlee is sweet. I didn't really know too much about Elisa anyway, to be honest. She was just pretty and Xavier liked her. I think she was Family too, like Ashlee. The other missing townie will be dealt with fairly soon, so you won't have to wait too long to find out about that. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  4. What face templates do you have in? Is it the same as before where there were like 5 groups of a mix of faces from various simmers? And if so, remember where you got it? I have the set I had mad on my own by picking and choosing, but want to swap it around especially after I make a few more townies.

    Onto the update! Ashlee is adorable, poor elisa though. I can't wait to get more of Austin, haven't seen him in a long time, and he's a favorite of mine. Hopefully he finds a girl to spend his time with. Jessica is adorable, and they really make a sweet couple. Funny on the twins being related to so much of the population, that's like my travers, they are only not related to Paloma's family, Milletts and the grimsleys. Still can't get over how old the boys are!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep, those are the ones. They're by Izza. I can't link right now, because I'm at work on my phone, but I have them linked on my Pinterest. They are near the top of the TS2 Default Replacements board, if that helps you find them. Anyway, they're pretty awesome faces. I plan on doing some swapping around eventually as well.

      I had to go check my play schedule, because I'm pretty excited about playing Austin again. His update will be coming up in April, so not too long to wait. :)

      I didn't realise your Travers were so connected! When I tallied up Filippo and Maria's grandkids, I wondered how I was ever going to pair them off with anyone. I think we're going to end up with a few more townies married in, lol!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  5. I really like Ashlee, she seems to have a good influence on Xavier, getting him to go out a little bit more. And they really make a cute couple!
    I'm looking forward to Austin's update.

    I'm glad to see that both Declan and Jessica and Justin and Louisa are making it work so nicely.
    I know he's been an adult for some time now, but I'm still having trouble believing that Declan is a teen! I know I keep saying it, but I have no idea why it seems so unreal with Declan, when they are all about the same age :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Xavier is shy to begin with but I think he's been very much in his shell since Lauren back in high school. Ashlee seems to be drawing him out a little bit, which is a good thing.

      Ha, I think a few people have that issue with Declan! He's been such a favourite that I think everyone sort of focused on him more than they might have with Justin and Xavier, so it was a bit more of a shock when he no longer looked the way you'd come to expect! He's still a favourite of mine, as he always has been.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  6. Oh, Austin. Will you ever settle down? I'm having a hard time seeing that!

    Ashlee is lovely. It makes me wonder if anyone has made template replacements for TS3... I should look into that!

    I really like Declan and Jessica together. Their relationship is really easy going, which is nice. They don't seemed to be very 'obsessed' with their futures and making everything perfect. Hopefully that works for them!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL, we've never seen Austin in a serious relationship, so settling down for him would be something totally foreign at the moment. I can see him maybe being about the age Amar was before he finally settles down but who knows?

      Oooh, I would love template replacements for TS3, so let me know if you find some! The TS3 templates are pretty bad. :\

      Yeah, I like Declan and Jessica a lot too. I was actually foreseeing a lot more drama for them than has happened and I thought they might have broken up by now! They're staying strong though, just like Declan's parents before him. I look forward to seeing what they want from life once they finish college.

      BTW, your comment wasn't eaten. I have comment moderation turned on for posts older than two weeks! :) It has really cut down on the spam I was getting.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete