Tuesday 10 October 2017

Sway

Round 37: March 2045 (Autumn)

Matthew and Simon Lane are 20, Aurora and Bianca Moretti are 19 and Gabriel Nott is 18. 
(Brendan is 22, Georgina and Annabel are 21 and Ramona is 18)


Narrated by Gabriel Nott


My sisters Georgina and Annabel moved into their own place on campus at around the same time I arrived.


There’s  a third bedroom but I wasn’t invited to move in. Annabel told me in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t have their baby brother around cramping her style. 

Not that I even asked to move in. I’m actually perfectly happy to live in the dorms.

I have to share with my roommate but honestly, I don’t see him that often, so it’s almost like I have my own room. 

And besides that, Bianca lives in the same dorm, so we can see each other whenever we like.

Bianca also shares a room with her twin sister Aurora. They didn’t at home but they’re so alike that they got used to it pretty quickly.

Aurora started dating Brendan last year, who has since graduated and gone back to Sullivan, so now they’re doing the same long distance thing Bianca and I did last year. 

Brendan has his own car though and doesn’t have to beg his dad to use it every weekend, like I did. I think they get to see each other more of then than we did.

Bianca feels bad for her and tries to invite her out with us, which isn’t the most thrilling idea in the world to me. 

Aurora always insists she’s fine and that we should go off and hang out together. Bianca just feels guilty going out while she’s alone in the dorm.

She really is fine though. Ramona Nihill is here this year and both Aurora and Bianca are friendly with her; Aurora has been hanging out with her a little so far, so she’s not lonely. 

After being apart for a year, I’ve really been trying to make up for lost time with Bianca. 

We did see each other last year but it was never as often as we wanted to. We mostly communicated via texting and Skype.

I love not having to wait until the weekend to see her. Now, I can just walk downstairs.

Bianca is obviously already all settled in on campus, while everything is still really new to me. 

Aurora’s ex-boyfriend Matthew lives in the same dorm as us, much to Aurora and Bianca’s chagrin.

I’ve never really had much to do with him, positive or negative. But I’d definitely be getting the side eye from the girls if I ever became too friendly with him. 

Honestly, even without his history with Aurora, I’d rather avoid him. The other day he got into a physical fight with another guy in the dorm cafeteria.

When I told Aurora what I’d seen, she wasn’t particularly stunned. She said it wasn’t the first time and that he’d taken a disliking to that guy pretty quickly.

Matthew’s twin Simon is quite different to him but I was still a little surprised to learn that Bianca had buddied up with Simon Lane last year. I don’t remember them hanging out much at all in high school.

And yes, I was a bit jealous at first, if I’m being totally honest.I’m sort of glad she didn’t mention much about him last year, because I would have driven myself crazy worrying about it.

After seeing them together though, I’m confident there are no romantic feelings there, on either side. 

I still don’t really like that they hang out together but I have to trust her.

Bianca and I have to fit our classes and study in around each other but it hasn’t been too bad so far. 

I really love my classes, so they don’t feel like a chore. Yet, anyway.

I’m mostly just happy I don’t have to do so many subjects I’m not interested in any more, like I did in high school. It’s almost all reading and writing fiction, so I’m totally in my element at uni. 

It’s too early to say what my grades will be like but I’m feeling pretty confident about them at this stage. 

Hopefully, I can keep up my enthusiasm for my classes all the way through. I’m not even halfway through the first semester at the moment. I don’t need a degree write a novel…but I know I’ll need a day job, at least to start with, and all the day jobs I might want to do require a degree.

Bianca thinks I should be a journalist and work at a fashion magazine, so I can get her designs some exposure.

I don’t quite think that’ll be my area but journalism is a definite possibility!

Notes:
  • Title is from Sway by Bic Runga. 
  • Sorry for the delay on this! I actually just finished up two weeks of holidays...but got barely any simming time in! This is the first of three uni updates this year - next up is Sylvia, Alice, Ruby and Ramona and then we'll visit Annabel and Georgina. 
  • Grades: Gabriel, Bianca and Matthew are all at 4.0 GPAs, Aurora is at 3.4 and Simon is at 3.2 I'm interested to see if Simon actually finishes his senior year before he flunks out. He's at the point where he needs to earn skill points for his classes and he never rolls skilling wants!
  • A lot of fights happen in this dorm, to the point where it actually gets really annoying to play. Matthew fights with Dane all the time, for no reason I've ever been able to pinpoint. Brendan's ex-girlfriend Amanda also lives in this dorm and she now starts fights with Aurora every chance she gets. I didn't realise she was still in love with Brendan but I guess she was. But you know...not any more! 
  • So, what also happened this round was Dane and Amanda fell in love autonomously. So I'll bump their ages up a few years (Dane especially should have already graduated) and move them in together as playable NPCs. I'll have a new family to play and I'll get rid of the constant fighting! Win win!
  • A few of you may have seen me say something on Twitter about the unexpected romance that happened this session. I was not referring to Dane and Amanda and there wasn't a good place to deal with it in this session. I won't be dragging it out too long though, so stay tuned! 
  • Gabriel and Bianca seem to have picked up right where they left off, which is what I was hoping for them. They rarely roll wants for anyone but each other (apart from family - Bianca likes to call her mum, and Gabriel likes to call his sisters). They're very cute. I suspect Bianca's friendship with Simon will probably fade somewhat now. 
  • Also, I have decided to keep the last update/next update thing but gradually (so gradually, lol) switch to using Laura's method of first name tags over surname tags, which makes finding the last/next updates less tedious for me. 

16 comments:

  1. Fighting in dorms can really get annoying, I agree! At the only dorm full of playables that I am currently playing in New Maximiliania, Dora Dreamer (daughter of the well-known Dirk Dreamer and an Alien father) is constantly having slap-fests with one of her half-sisters, although to my knowledge the poor girl has never done anything to deserve that. Now the half-sister has graduated, and I hope Dora won't direct her aggressive temper against someone else now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm glad I'm not the only one with dorm fight clubs! I wonder what it is about that situation that sparks it? I almost never see fights in any other kind of lot!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  2. Poor Gabriel being snubbed by his sisters. Personally I'd prefer to live in a dorm away from my siblings. lol At least he doesn't seem to mind too much and a bonus that his roommate is hardly ever there, he gets the place to himself and private time with Bianca.

    Omg, all the fighting is pretty funny! I think there is definitely more spontaneous fighting in TS2 than TS3. lol

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gabriel is just fine being "snubbed" in this situation (and I think if it was up to Georgina, he would have been invited anyway - Annabel is a bit more domineering than her twin). He gets all the time he wants with Bianca at Novak Hall. :)

      I actually don't know if I ever saw a fight in TS3! If only I could say that in TS2. It's funny to a point but it gets a bit old. I don't think I'd mind so much if every sim on the lot didn't rush to watch every time it happens!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  3. I saw your title and I was like, OMG that Bic Runga song from like 1997! I remember being in high school, daydreaming about boys, and playing that song on my guitar like constantly! <3

    Anyway!

    How fun to have all of the Nott kids at uni together! Fun for us, at least, I don't know about Gabriel's sisters, lol! Hopefully he won't cramp their style too much. I'm glad to see that Gabriel and Bianca have picked up right where they left off. I was hoping for them too!

    Oh, man, Matthew is a tornado, isn't he? Yikes! At least he gets good grades.

    I love your dormie dramas, lol! Yay for a new NPC romance! And I can't wait to find out who your other unexpected romance is! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes! "Sway" was one of those songs everyone liked - indie-loving me and my pop/R&B loving friends. I sadly have no musical talent and just contented myself with playing it over and over again, probably on a cassette recorded off the radio!

      Three out of four Nott kids, anyway - they have a little brother still at home, Peter (he's 8). His siblings will probably all be married off by the time he gets to college, lol. I can imagine Gabriel and Bianca getting married pretty early, assuming they make it through college. They've made it through this first hurdle, so that's a good sign for them.

      I actually thought Matthew had only hooked up with Lexie, this blonde who used to live in this dorm and has now moved to my other dorm. But he added two more notches to his bedpost this session, one of which I didn't even notice. He's a Knowledge sim, FFS! I don't know what his issue is!

      My unexpected romance will be in the very next update, so you won't have long to wait at all! I wrote it today and it'll be out tomorrow. :) It didn't make sense to me at all at first...but thinking about it more, I actually think it works, in its own weird little way.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  4. Poor Gabriel, his sisters aren't too thrilled to have him around, lol! But at least he can spend his time with Bianca.

    The fights made me laugh, but I can imagine they get annoying! Yay for the NPC romance. I'm very interested to see who the other romance involves!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Georgina probably would have let Gabriel move in, if he'd wanted to but Annabel considers herself the boss ;) Fortunately, Gabriel's not too sore about it!

      The fights get way too much! It's less the fighting and more the fact that they are so interesting to everyone else on the lot, so I can't ignore them if I want. I'm almost positive Matthew will find someone else to feud with next session!

      The other romance will be in tomorrow's update!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  5. I love it when townies fall in love, but your townies seem to have richer lives than mine. I'm anxious to see the new romance now! LOL!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha, I always feel like everyone else has more townie love going on than mine. My playable NPC pool seems very thin compared to everyone else's! But I'm glad to have another couple in the mix now.

      New romance coming up tomorrow! :D

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  6. Aww all those Nott kids off at Uni! I wonder how their parents are coping! Too funny on Gabriel not being invited to live with them, I can see why they are all happier where they are, but if I did that to my sister's, there'd be war.

    Bianca and Aurora are such pretty sims, and totally cute with their beaus. I am not surprised by Gabriel's 4.0 ether. Curious if Simon will end up graduating, it's usually about that time that my sims start to get weeded out (needing skills).

    You have my empathy for the fights, Westfall Hall is constantly full of fighting and my highschool. It makes me nuts. Most of it has no reason that I can peg, which makes it all the more annoying.

    Very interesting on the tagging system. It is such a pain on the next/previous, I've been faltering in updating that for a shameful long time. I might add the previous, but don't add the next to the old... like how useless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I imagine the Nott-Novak household will feel very empty this round! And no, my sister would not have been happy if I had some cool apartment and forced her to live in a dorm. Honestly though, she's a better housekeeper than me and always has been, so it would have been more of a bum deal for her than for me!

      So glad I'm not alone with the fighting thing! I've never had it in my high school but that's probably because my high school is mostly playables and absent any known drama, they all tend to have neutral-to-positive relationships. Fights are far more likely with my townies! I've had townie-vs-townie rivalries in previous rounds too. And yeah, except for Aurora and Amanda, I think just about all of them have been prompted by absolutely nothing that I could see.

      I don't know how Wordpress handles it but to Blogger's credit, you can get a preview of what the URL of the post will be while you're writing it, which makes it easy enough for me to add the "next post" to the old one while I'm grabbing the URL from the old one. Still tedious...but I'm hoping the first name tags I've been adding will make it easier. I'm still in 2009 right now but hopefully, I'll be finished the task one day, lol!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  7. That's really nice that you can preview the link name with Blogger. That may be a thing with WordPress but I haven't found it or used it if it is. That would make it less laborious and mainly it's just hard to remember to always go back and put "next." The first name tags is a good idea.

    It's nice to see Gabriel settled into the dorm and enjoying his classes, at least for now. I've never taken the leap to only skilling if sims have the want, at least not on a consistent basis. I also kind of find ways to get them to roll the study and skill wants by trying to fulfill their other wants anyway. But how often do you end up having a sim flunk out for that reason? I'm wondering if it is as many as half of sims or less?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I don't know if the link preview has always been there but I've used it every time since I discovered it! It's very handy and it means I almost never forget to do the "next" links.

      Gabriel is Knowledge/Family, so hopefully his conscientiousness with his classes will last! As for flunking out, that very, very rarely happens to me with this method. I've been using it for years now and I think I've had a total of 3 or 4 sims flunk out? The most recent was Maia, if I remember correctly.

      Really, without College Harder Grades (which I do use) and with your uni hood set to autumn (there's a skilling bonus in autumn), your sim can get an A+ every semester without doing anything other than going to class, which they queue up automatically. Even with College Harder Grades, they'll still fill their meter completely without doing anything other than going to class. They won't get above a B if they don't write a term paper...but they'll still pass.

      The way they end up failing is by missing final exams or by not having the skill points needed to fill their grade meter. That's really rare with my sims because I don't think any of the majors require a skill to be above 5. Most of my sims either have their skills higher than that already or they are motivated enough to roll a skilling want to let me get them there. Charisma is the killer, because there's no way they'll get that autonomously. So if they don't roll a want and they need a Charisma point...we might have a problem!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  8. Oddly I don't remember a lot of dorm fights in TS2... the place where the fights got really out of hand was the boarding house where Samantha and Andrew had lived at different times. It was the main reason I moved him out - it was fast becoming unplayable.

    This makes me miss TS2 college. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to do college in TS3. I was already unsure, then a bug in my game complicated things even more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It probably depends more on the number of unrelated sims (just because they're more likely to have low relationships in the first place) you have on the lot, versus the actual lot type. With my other dorm, which only has five rooms and is usually near filled with playables who already know each other, I never have this fighting issue! I think this dorm houses 14 sims, so there's way more opportunity for trouble!

      TS3 uni had so many fun additions but reading other TS3 blogs, it seems like it's also really buggy, in terms of getting sims back to the hood. :\ I don't know if you read Pine Hollow, but Shana recently decided to build a uni in her main world, just to avoid the bugginess.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete