Wednesday 17 April 2013

She bangs the drums

Round 34: March 2040 (Autumn)


Emma Gottlieb, Jessica Royce-Nihill and Louisa Gentry are 20 and Lauren Carmody is 19. 
(Sophie is 27 and Justin is 19)


Narrated by Emma Gottlieb



I guess Lauren wasn’t busy enough this semester, because she's decided to start up The Suffolk Sun, a campus newspaper. She says it’s going to look awesome on her resume once she gets out in the real world and wants to start writing. 


The way I see it, she’s got great connections already with her mother being a fairly prominent journalist but Lauren is really excited about this newspaper thing. She's spent a ton of time trying to rope us all into contributing. 

She’s convinced Jessica to start doing a food column for her - just some recipes that students can make in their dorms or rentals, that are easy and don’t cost much money. 

No way am I getting involved. I do enough typing for my classes. I’m not going to add to it, unless maybe Lauren can pay me. 

Louisa has so far declined as well. She’s really trying to make sure she doesn’t take on too much. 

Louisa had the option of taking some extra classes to catch up with Jessica and me and graduate on time but this semester, she decided not to take that up. 

Seeing she already has a history of not coping too well with a standard course load, packing her schedule with more classes didn’t seem like a great idea. 

Louisa is doing really well in her classes this semester, so why mess up a good thing?

She’s quite content to stay behind a semester now, even though Jessica and I will be leaving before her. 

Lauren is pretty damn thrilled that she’ll have Louisa with her for a bit longer. 

And for Louisa, it means a shorter separation from Justin. 

They're talking about maybe getting a place together back in Sullivan once Justin graduates (Justin is all for it, Louisa needs some convincing), so they’re pretty serious.

I think it's nuts to get all domestic in your early 20s but no one's forcing it on me, thankfully! Not since I broke up with Makenzie anyway. 

I’ll probably end up rooming with Jessica and Lauren after graduation and I think I’ll be happy with that arrangement for at least a few years. 

I guess I just have to hope they’ll be happy with it too! I’m pretty sure Jessica is going to want to jump right into her career post-college. She’ll be taking over her dad’s restaurant at some point but is looking at other culinary-related options until then. 

I went to catch up with my sister Sophie recently and Jessica insisted on coming along to “pick her brain”. Sophie just took over Grandpa’s restaurant The Claudette and she’s about to undertake a huge renovation. She’s at the restaurant a lot these days, so that’s where we met her. 

I’m not going to lie. It’s pretty boring listening to two people talk about the restaurant business when you have absolutely no interest or knowledge of it yourself. 

It didn’t take either Sophie or Jessica very long to realise I was dozing off though, so we were soon at a table, just catching up in general.

Sophie usually wants to know if I have a new girlfriend yet. Sophie is cool but it’s almost like having another mother sometimes. 

Sophie just likes to know what’s going on though; I think Mum is already thinking about possible grandchildren. 

But anyway, I was happy to be able to tell her about Heather, the girl I’ve been seeing lately. We've only been together a month or so but I really like her. 

I was hoping to meet someone this year but I thought I’d have to look a little further than just across the hall. 

I knew Heather was pretty special from the beginning. We clicked right away. Maybe that happens a lot to some people but it almost never happens to me. I’m far more likely to be irritated by someone right away.

Heather ended up asking me out fairly early on and we’ve been together ever since.

Heather is a musician - drums, mostly - but she’s not sure what she wants to do after graduation.

She just knows she doesn’t want to do music. She thinks that would take all the fun out of it, which I can understand. I wouldn’t want to make a living out of my hobbies either. 

We still haven’t ever argued about anything, which worries me a little bit. It makes me wonder what might be coming up on the horizon!

I’m trying to just enjoy things though, because we really are having a lot of fun together. 

So far, Heather has hit it off with all of my friends, which is a relief. I worry about that sometimes, because my first girlfriend, Laurel, didn’t really make any secret of the fact that she really disliked Lauren. 

Thankfully, there have been no issues like that with Heather. 

Actually, when I “introduced” her to Jessica, it turned out they’d already met and chatted a few weeks ago in the dorms and got along then too.

That was the most important one to me. I think if Jessica ever really didn’t get along with one of my girlfriends, that would probably be it for the relationship.

So far, so good with Heather though. I’m not sure where we’re going exactly. Maybe we have long term potential, maybe not. But neither of us are in a rush, so we’ll just wait and see what happens.


Notes:
  • Title is from She Bangs The Drums by Stone Roses. Heather was originally going to be a guitarist but I changed it to drums once I remembered the title I chose for the update!
  • Heather and Emma were entirely autonomous. I was pretty much letting the girls do what they wanted while I cheated them up (because they were still freshmen, fresh out of CAS) and Emma started flirting with Heather. They kissed, made out, woohooed in the hot tub and fell in love all by themselves. I just made them go steady at the end of it, considering they seemed to know what they wanted. :)
  • Heather gets along with everyone insanely well. I had to check her nice points to see if she had a ton of them or something! Nope - just 3. So I don't know. She's just really good at being a Popularity sim, I guess. If I ever marry her in, she'll have to get the Charismatic trait. 
  • Not sure what I'll do with Lauren's newspaper. I'll just keep it in mind in case I think of something to use it for one day. When I do another student union, I'll probably make an office for it. 
  • Poor Declan didn't get a look in this time around but he narrated his own update, so I'm okay with that. Emma had a lot to say!
  • Grades: Jessica has a 4.0, Emma and Lauren both have a 3.8 and Louisa has managed to drag her average from a 1.9 (where it was after she got on academic probation) to a 3.4! Pretty impressive!

16 comments:

  1. Wow, a campus newspaper sounds like fun, can't wait to see what you do with it. I would love to see the girls living together after graduation, can't wait for that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Still not sure what I'll do with the newspaper but I like the fact that I have one now. Storylines have surprised me before!

      Jessica, Lauren and Emma will definitely be rooming together after graduation; I'm watching Louisa and Justin to see what happens with them. They've been together the longest and they may want to get their own place.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  2. Thumbs up for Louisa!
    Loved the picture where Sophie and Jessica "talk shop" and Emma looks so bored on the sofa and how you worked that scene into the story :-D
    I've never had two Sims woohoo on their own accord; they kiss, flirt, hug, cuddle under the stars and classic-dance a lot without me telling them to, but woohoo has never happened.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I'm pretty proud of Louisa...considering it was my fault she got on academic probation in the first place!

      Emma at the restaurant with Sophie and Jessica was all autonomous too, which I loved. She didn't even try to stand around listening to their conversation, lol!

      In an unmodded game, you won't see autonomous woohoo. Autonomous everything else but they won't go all the way without your intervention. I have autonomous woohoo in my game because of ACR. ACR makes sims significantly more amorous!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  3. I like the idea of the campus newspaper, and I like the fact that Emma could not be convinced of participating in that! Her expression is hilarious! Lauren is so tall and beautiful, she's like a model next to her short/average sized friends. And that's great that Louisa is doing so well in school, and her and Justin are pretty cute together.

    Pretty funny that she was dozing off when they talked restaurant, I can see how that would be boring to listen to if you have nothing to add or an interest in it at all.

    I think it's great that Emma and Heather hooked up on their own, makes it more special I think. I'm curious how they will go along. Do you ever change your townie's aspirations? Say if Heather was a romance, would you have kept it or changed it?

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Nah, I couldn't see Emma doing anything she didn't want to do! Even back in the days when she had a crush on Lauren, she had her limits. ;) I only just noticed Lauren's height this session, for some reason. She's very statuesque.

      I can't remember ever changing a townie's aspiration but I may have. I wouldn't be opposed to it but it would only happen if the townie didn't suit their aspiration somehow. It would depend. In Heather's case, she's Popularity, which is the same as Emma, so she'll keep her aspiration. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  4. I love the idea of the campus newspaper! And yay for Heather, sometimes sims get it right all on their own :).

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Yeah, who knows? I might think up something fun to do with it one of these days!

      Autonomous romance is the best romance! Sometimes my sims know better than me. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  5. I love it when sims hook up by themselves and I almost always go with it, since it feels more interesting that way. :) They seem to be a great match, too.

    Also like the idea of a campus newspaper, it feels like a sim campus should have one. With a large section for random gossip, of course. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I think I usually go with it as well. In my experience, they've been sims who I either didn't know what to do with or who I was not ready to hook up with who I had in mind for them. Emma fell into the first category for me, so I was quite happy to see her find Heather. :)

      A campus should have a newspaper! I'd never thought of it before. Now I'm wondering if sims on campus get a newspaper. If I ever need a pic of a student reading one, I might struggle. Hmmm.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  6. Oooh, Heather looks like a really good match for the normally irritable Emma. I'm quite taken by this relationship now. Hopefully they can continue. ;)

    Of course Lauren tried to rope everyone in on the newspaper thing, lol! I'm not surprised at all by that.

    I really like Emma's updates. She's feisty!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I'm quite taken by Emma and Heather myself! When I loaded the lot, I wondered to myself whether there were even any gay sims in the hood yet. I think there are only about 10 dormies around at the moment, so I wouldn't have been surprised if there weren't. And then Emma starts up this thing with Heather and they seem so well-matched. I was very happy!

      Emma just took over this update. I was pretty stumped, so I was thrilled, lol.

      Lauren's a very enthusiastic sim but not persuasive enough to get Louisa and Emma on side this time around! Hopefully there will be some other students next year who will become her contributors. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  7. A campus newspaper is such a great idea! Maybe Lauren can pass it on to some one new, and so on and so on, this way it keeps going when she leaves campus as well. The only thing I know about campus newspapers comes from watching Gilmore Girls, so I'm sorry if the 'idea' is lousy :)

    It's great when sims find some one on their own! And Heather seems like a really nice girl, I can't wait to see how things develop between these 2.

    I'm so glad Louisa is working hard to keep her grades up. It's not as much fun to see all your friends graduate when you are the one who's 'left' behind, but I'm glad she's not having that much trouble with it anymore.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, the newspaper will be passed down but probably more behind the scenes. You can assume it still exists, even once Lauren graduates, but I won't do much with it unless I have a playable student who seems like the type to get into student journalism! I don't know a whole lot about campus newspapers myself. I used to read mine and I've seen them on various TV shows and that's about it!

      Well, I don't know how nice Heather is, or else she probably wouldn't be too great a match with Emma, lol! People seem to like her a lot anyway though, especially Emma. I'm hoping they can stay together a while.

      Any trouble Louisa had with her grades was my fault anyway! Left to her own devices, she's a pretty good student. I'm hoping she (or I ;)can keep that up for the next year and a half.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  8. Awwwwww, Emmaaaaaaaaa!!!! I had to catch up what she's been into!
    Oooh, Heather seems quite matching with her!
    A Jessica-Lauren-Emma's rooming!!! YEAH! That's exciting! I love these girls!!

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    1. I forgot you were a bit of an Emma fan! I love her too, despite (or maybe because of!) all her grumpy ways. I'm hoping she and Heather will be very happy together.

      Lila, Elspeth and Sophie's expiration date as roomies is approaching, so I'll be happy to have another all-girl house. I love my roomie households!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete