3.3 To Change Yourself

After a pleasantly cool summer, a bitterly cold autumn grips the Sims University campus. The change in colors gives us hope that time is, in fact, passing, and we may not be stuck here forever.

The pressure from coursework has apparently driven Lydia mad.

Solana cleans up after her dorm-mates. They are disgusting. They leave messes everywhere. She wishes she could ignore it, but she has the neat trait, so she cannot.

There's "organic" tofu dogs waiting back in the dorm fridge, but Lydia stubbornly sticks to a diet of pizza, candy, juice, and soda.

There will be no repercussions to this. Her calorie consumption needs somehow remain under-met, ensuring her figure could pass for a meek little high school girl's.

She must be somebody's fetish, but that somebody has yet to materialize. No matter how many parties she goes to, people never talk to her for more than a moment or two.

Coward or brave, she must be giving people the wrong vibe.

Sigh, routing errors. These drunk woman are (somehow???) blocking Lydia's access to more booze.

So Lydia clears a path for herself. With bees.

I just can't figure out why Lydia has no friends.......

Solana has stayed up late tonight, waiting for her sister to come back to the dorm. "People are spreading weird rumors about you, Lydia... could you tell me honestly, if you were abusing drugs?"

"Really, Lana?" Lydia doesn't appreciate being questioned as soon as she gets in the door. "You think so little of me?"

"It's that alchemy stuff, isn't it..."

"You said you'd help me understand why I'm magic!"

"Yes, and I will, and I'm sorry. I've just been busy. I have a full class load this term, just like you."

"Whatever...."

"I love you and I don't want you to change yourself permanently, Lydia."

"Well I guess I don't love myself," Lydia says, walking around her and stalking upstairs.

The days get shorter, darker, and drearier.

But the learning continues, and there is still joy to be found.

As a native of Aurora Skies, Solana has a pretty high tolerance for cold temperatures.

Though she skulks around parties almost every night, Lydia is bright eyed, intense and outgoing for the morning's lectures and class exercises. Whether this will save her grades remains to be seen.

A bright red Spooky Day costume catches the eye of an admirer, and finally, someone flirts with Lydia.

Unfortunately Ye Gangnam isn't Lydia's... type.

Since summoning temporary bees on Ann Conners, Lydia has had her dorm room to herself.

Some of Ann's things remain. Tacky pennants, some pictures, the radio, the lamp. They're just part of the room now, like the striped wallpaper, and the shelves that were empty when Lydia first moved in.

Lydia starts to wonder if she's doomed to be like her father, cursed to solitude yet on some level enjoying it.

And then this damn ghost shows up.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

After Lydia gets over herself and stops screaming, she attempts to speak to the apparition that has appeared in her room. The ghost's words are distorted and echoy in Lydia's head, but after a while of listening, she understands the dead woman's name was Kriss Theed, and she was a student here at Sims-U. At some point. This was, many semesters ago, HER room, and she's been haunting Henry Hall and this dorm room for a long time. She's been watching Lydia since Lydia moved in! Lydia just hadn't responded to her presence until now.

"I always pretend I'm trying to scare people, but this is the first time anyone heard me! This is crazy! This is... awesome!" Kriss rambles.

"Is this what happens to every dead person?" Lydia frets.

"I don't think so! I saw my grandfather die, and the reaper took him, but... I don't remember the reaper coming for me."

"How did you die?"

"I can't actually remember that either," Kriss says sadly.

"And you have been... creeping on me, this whole time?"

"Well you're not that fun to watch..."

"...That's hurtful..."

"Sometimes I follow you to parties. You do some really messed up shit! Like, what is with the bees?"

"The bees... the alchemy! That must be it. I've accidentally enhanced my innate perceptions by ingesting too much magic. Zhong warned me this could happen... he just didn't say... THIS would happen!"

"Magic?" The ghost blinks a few times. "That stuff is MAGIC?"

"Well yeah, what did you think it was?"

"I was a science and medicine major, so I've seen plenty of things that seemed crazy be explained with science..."

"I made homing bees come out of thin air!" Lydia glares, indignant now. "It's magic! I'm magic!"

It doesn't take long for Kriss to prove that Lydia is the only one who can interact with her.

It takes significantly longer for Lydia to convince Solana that Kriss exists.

First come all the skeptical questions about what Lydia has eaten lately, how much sleep she's gotten, how much stress she's under, if she's had any symptoms of illness, et cetra. Then come the humoring questions, such as what Lydia thinks Kriss wants from her.

And then come the brain scans.

Solana and Arne put in long hours in the labs trying to find evidence of Kriss Theed's existence.

Keeping it a secret from the other students that share their lab isn't easy, but they manage, because the last thing Solana wants is more weird rumors about her sister to be spread around.

At least Lydia finally has someone to goof around with.

Kriss even teaches her some trick shots at the pool table.

"Why don't people notice when you move stuff?" Lydia wonders aloud.

"Sometimes they do," Kriss admits. "And they freak out and run, or they think it's a joke and ignore it. But before you came along, I rarely had enough energy stored up to manipulate objects."

"What do you mean, before I came along?"

"Well, you radiate this sort of energy... and as it's been getting stronger, so have I."

"That sounds... almost threatening..." Lydia mumbles.

"Well. When I leave your presence, it's weird, I start to forget who I am and... I'm just kind of a lost soul... only a shade of whoever I was. Slowly fading away."

"Do you not want to move on, Kriss? I don't know if I would."

"I don't know. I don't think you want me around you forever. And I don't want to go back to before."

"What kind of coloration does Kriss have?" Solana asks. "A lot of the... erm... literature I've found on the subject indicates that a ghost's appearance will have something to do with their manner of death."

Lydia's face scrunches up in confusion. "I don't know? She's like... pink and blue... ish..."

"You mean purple?"

"No."

"Well... letting her know how she passed may allow her to come to terms with it and move on... or it may be wishful thinking," Solana admits.

"I went to every professor in our department," Arne announces, after jogging in at a brisk pace. "Nobody could remember a Kriss Theed... except for professor Archibald."

"Doctor Martin?" Solana is on a first name basis with most of her professors by now. "What did he say?"

"He said that when he himself was a senior student here, Kriss was a freshman classmate who went missing. She was last seen at a bonfire party at Llama Beach, and she hadn't mentioned to anyone that she might be leaving. There was a minor investigation, but no evidence of any wrongdoing, so it was assumed she packed up and went back home."

"It's not uncommon for people to drop out," Solana says.

"She didn't officially drop out..."

"It's not uncommon for people to not care about paperwork either," Lydia says, as she glances over her shoulder at where Kriss is hovering near the whiteboard.

"Take her to the beach," Arne suggests. "See if she remembers anything about the party."

"You remember anything about a bonfire party?" Lydia calls out.

"I went to lots of parties!" Kriss says.

"She went to lots of parties. She even follows me to parties," Lydia reports.

"I still like when the guys streak!" Kriss says.

Lydia rolls her eyes. "Despite having no sex organs anymore, she still appreciates it when the guys get naked."

"That is far too much information," Arne says, deadpan.

Solana blushes. "Is... is that normal for parties?"

"Oh yeah," Lydia confirms. "Guys strip down and streak all the time."

"Well... maybe we shouldn't try to get her to move on just yet," Solana suggests. "I'm very close to being able to prove she exists. I think I may even be able to construct tech that can interact with her."

 

After some hard work and technobabble, Solana is ready to perform her most intense experiment yet.

Solana gives herself ghostlike qualities, and is finally able to converse with Kriss herself.

Lydia freaks out, thinking her sister has died, but Arne assures her this is only temporary...

Solana is soon back to normal, and has tons of new ideas to try.

She intends to make this research the subject of her first major paper.





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Etc.: Kriss was just a normal UL townie. She's a science & medical major, according to the wiki. I went into CAS and ghostified her for the purposes of the narrative. Happy Halloween!

3.2 Just Another Party

Aw hell no, this campus has a Sonic.

[noises of disapproval]

Solana and Arne are stopping in between classes to get some food poisoning, I guess.

The public speaking classes are Lydia's least favorite. To overcome her fears and deliver a speech worthy of the same grades her peers are getting, she has to put in long hours practicing in front of smaller audiences. Normally this is done at odd hours in a coffee shop, with a sympathetic classmate listening in.

"...Are... are the kitchen staff mocking me?" she whispers.

Raj turns a page in his book. "Probably."

Uh oh, Arne, what's wrong?

Food poisoning, huh? That's what you get for eating at Sonic, you witless fool.

Another trip to the library.

Despite her strong start in nanite technology, Solnana's scientific interests (and coursework) span multiple disciplines. One of her biology courses has her tending a communal garden.

"My mother is a pretty big fan of this," Solana chatters on idly, while Arne studies for an astrophysics exam. "She has a fascination with living independent from supply chains, and off the general power grid..."

"She thinks food from the grocery store has mind control chemicals in it," Arne reminds Solana that he already knows all this about her mother.

"Yeah, well. Obviously I don't believe that. But living off the grid is kind of a romantic idea."

"Well you can't live off the overgrid..."

"You know what I meant."

Arne's stomach growls, prompting him to get to work cooking tonight's dinner over an open flame.

"There's just something really comforting about knowing exactly where your food came from," Solana muses.

Arne can't help but wonder if this has something to do with the food poisoning they got at Sonic.

 The wind off the lake is cold, but Arne and Solana spend a lot of leisure time there fishing.

Little by little, Solana stops eating food at restaurants or the cafeteria, and makes her own meals at the dorm with ingredients she knows are fresh.

"I don't get why you bother," Lydia says, watching her sister labor over what will be a huge batch of pancakes. "Any leftovers are going to get pillaged by our dorm-mates."

It's true. Nobody seems to have respect for anyone else's stuff. Labeling food "SOLANA'S, DON'T TOUCH" did not deter Cora Sidwell from eating fully half of the spaghetti Solana made.

"At least I'm getting others to eat healthier," Solana replies.

"There's nothing wrong with the cafeteria food..."

"I don't trust it."

 "Oh. Okay." Lydia has irrational fears too, so she can't exactly criticize.

"When did you come in last night? I was up playing video games in the front room, but I didn't see you." Solana is trying to sound innocently conversational, but it's obvious she is concerned about her sisters' new habits.

Lydia won't meet her eyes. "Late. It was just another party. I don't know why I even go. I can't make any friends."

"How are your classes going?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I think I should switch majors."

"To what?"

"I don't know. Maybe technology. At least those people don't need social skills."

"You have social skills, Lydia. You just need more self-confidence."

"Hmph..."

"Try some of my pancakes? They're made with fresh grapes."

Lydia tries to hide her disgust. "No... I think I'll order a pizza."

"For breakfast?" It's Solana's turn to hide her disgust.

"For breakfast," Lydia confirms, pouting and squeezing her teddy bear a little closer. "I'm an adult now, I can do what I want."

"Well at least tip generously. You're making the delivery person go out in the rain..."

Lydia can't contain a smirk when Arne autonomously helps himself to the pizza instead of the pancakes. 

Lydia hasn't seen her roommate, Ann, since the beginning of the term... but late one night she is rudely awakened with loud music. Two heavily juiced women — other students Lydia recognizes only in passing — have turned on Ann's radio and are working out to the music.

"What are you doing in here?!" Lydia shrieks, too tired and startled for tact.




"We're friends of Ann's," the one in pink says. "Ann said we could crash here for the night!"

Her name is Ashley Corono and she is a business major. Not that we really care.

"Ann didn't clear this with me..." Lydia's complaint is drowned out by the beats.

The other one, Lizzie Mund, plops down on Ann's bed with a big yawn.

"We saw you at Mahmoud's party," Ashley continues. "We thought you'd be, like, cool..."

Lydia is pissed off, but also afraid of confrontations. She bolts from the room.

She stands outside in the hall, alone, sobbing quietly.

She isn't sure who she hates more... Ann, for sending her friends to their room, the friends, for misbehaving, or herself, for being completely unable to deal with it.

"It doesn't have to be this way," she tells herself, as she tries to dry her tears.

Lydia returns to her room late the next morning. Her first class is starting now, but she doesn't care. Skipping one isn't the end of the world, maybe.

Lizzie and Ashley have gone, leaving unmade beds and general untidiness in their wake.

Lydia scowls at her bed; she can tell one of them slept in it, left crumbs in it, while Lydia herself slept curled up next to the television in the first floor common room.

Lydia stalks over to her bookshelf, and carefully sifts through her boxes of belongings.

She hid her elixir stash under a pile of ugly sweaters.

One big gulp later, and her coward trait has swapped to brave.

And she's. Still. Angry.

It's mid-afternoon before Ann responds to Lydia's urgent texts.

"Did you tell those girls they could show up here last night?"

"Ash and Liz? Yeah, I gave 'em my key. It's not like I was getting much use of it."

"They waltzed in in the middle of the night, super juiced, and started playing speakers full blast. Then they basically trashed the place."

Ann glances around at the room that has been cleaned up quite nicely since then. "Uh..."

"You didn't even ask me if this was okay!"

"Look, Lydia. I know you've had it easy not having to deal with a roommate so far. So maybe you can sit your priss ass down and deal with it now. Ash and Liz aren't that bad. They need a place to crash. Their landlord kicked them out of their apartment."

"WHY?"

Ann recoils from the shouted question. "I don't know?"

"Okay that's it," Lydia fumes. "You get the bees."

"I get the what?"

Lydia hurls a glowing yellow bottle at Ann's feet. The sound of glass breaking is sharp, and shocking, but not so much as the swarming buzz that fills the air next.

The bees are only interested in Ann. They dart around her in a fury, stinging random spots of exposed flesh.

Ann's piercing screams of terror do not phase Lydia.

"I'm an alchemist," Lydia explains. "I have the power to summon bees. So let me be clear now. I'd rather not see you OR your friends here ever again."

Lydia never heard from Ann again. 

 

She wondered if she'd hear from their Resident Advisor, or even campus police, but she did not, which is just as well. She would have obviously denied having the power to summon bees...

On Friday night Solana and Arne take a rare break from their science'ing and invite Lydia out for bowling.

Of course physical prowess is Laurel's thing, not Lydia's.

Lydia has always been one of three sisters, but now she feels like a third wheel.

Lydia has been hitting the elixirs pretty hard, since digging out her old stash.

This one allows her to go days without sleeping.

Too busy wrapped up in each others' arms, Arne and Solana do not notice when Lydia leaves them in favor of the bar upstairs. They didn't notice her chugging an elixir, and they don't notice her ordering cheap drinks.

Even after getting booze in her system, Lydia's bookworm trait leads her to gravitate away from the crowd and settle into a corner to read fantasy novels.

She's hopeless.

After a while the bar closes and kicks Lydia out. Instead of going back to her room, she starts "tagging" the corner store. This would surely earn her points with the local rebels, if she were to get caught.

Perhaps Lydia missed her calling as an arts major.






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Etc.: SimBurger (the diner in Sims University) is most probably modeled after a Sonic Drive-In.

Sonic Drive-In has made attempts on my life and I'm still mad.

I'm having Solana obey the "homemade" rules now, but haven't forced Arne or Lydia to comply (yet). Sadly the meals are of mediocre quality, as she does not have access to a fantastic garden, and I forgot to dump all of Rock's ancient (but still fresh!) harvest into her inventory before I shipped this trio off to university. So Solana has been harvesting crops around the campus.

And yes, the roommates (who are not under my control) will eat up meals stored in the fridges.