1.31 Can't Quite Believe it

Naomi can't quite believe it. 

Her last exam was this afternoon. History. It's over. It's been over for hours now. 

She pulls up to the curb and looks around numbly. 

"Hey there," Brianne says, a large grin on her face, "Ready to celebrate no more exams?" 

"I just... is it really over?" Naomi asks in disbelief. 

"Thank the Watcher it is!" Brianne laughs with relief. 

"I don't even know how I did," Naomi frets, "I had no idea what impact-," 

"Oh. My. Gosh. It's over, Naomi! Stop talking about it!" Brianne interrupts snappily. 

"Sorry..." 

"Quit apologising! Let's just get inside." 

Once they're in front of a karaoke machine, their exam woes are forgotten. 

They're finally free! 

They're both awful singers... 

But the world seems to almost fade away. Naomi's having too much fun to care... 

"Hey, isn't that Calvin's 'not' girlfriend?" 

Until she realizes Calvin's entire family is here too. 

"Hey, Naomi, this is a duet. You know, two people have to sing?" Brianne whispers. The microphone broadcasts it to the entirety of Mick's Master Karaoke. 

Naomi switches her microphone off. 

"That's Calvin's mom. Oh my gosh, Brianne! We need to get off stage!" 

Brianne is too immersed in the vocals to answer. 

But yanking her microphone plug out does the trick. 

"Naomi, what the fuck?" Brianne is surprised. 

"Look, I'm uh...hungry. Let's get something to eat. Far. Far. away from here." 

Brianne is too hungry to argue. 

So they grab a greasy, delicious dinner at the diner. 

"Briaaaaaanne, let's go!" Naomi yawns to her friend. 

Brianne holds her hand up in a "just one second" gesture, deeply engrossed in a conversation with her mom. 

"Yeah mom, I'm with Naomi! I know it's late. Get off my back, it's not even curfew!" 

Eventually they make it to Naomi's house. 

"Are you sure you can't stay over?" Naomi asks, "My mom won't mind since you're a girl." 

Brianne shakes her head, "My mom's worried that since I'm nearly 18 and done with school now that I'm going to 'gallivant with some hooligans'. Seriously, that is a word for word quote. Like I said, she reads way too much." 

"Well, she does teach literature." 

Brianne shudders. Her mother was a well-known journalist once! That was cool! Now she's retired and teaching at their school. She is so glad that she's graduating now; going to school with her mom there... she can't imagine. 

"Do you need me to drive you home then?" Naomi hesitates at her door. 

"I don't need to be babysat! Gosh!" seeing Naomi's surprise, Brianne closes her eyes. 

"Sorry. Just...stuff with my mom. No, I'm fine, it's nice out anyways. Walking home when it's warm.... gotta enjoy that. Fall's just around the corner and all." 

The two friends wave goodbye. 

Naomi waves to her mother, who doesn't seem to notice her entering. Another call from work, Naomi guesses. She goes to her room to give her mother some privacy. 

"Starlight Shores?" Sage breathes, "Of course I'll go! No, no, I'd be more than happy to relocate..." Anything for the dream. 

Besides, Naomi's old enough to take care of herself now. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN: WHEW that's finally done. I had to cut out so much because I took hundreds of photos. I might post an outtake page later of the things Sage and Naomi got up to during Naomi's teen years. 

So this marks the end of generation 1! Obviously the heir is Naomi. I'll give her traits here and later on the page; 

- Workaholic

- Friendly

- Charismatic

- Neurotic

- Dislikes children 

She got the last one upon aging up. Given that this is a random legacy, Naomi might have a bit of a rough time with that one... 

Some other notes; 

Brianne's mother is Constance Shelley. I was surprised that she had any kids since in my previous playthroughs in Riverview she stayed single forever (or had a partner but no children). She was never home the few times I considered sending Naomi over so we never get to see her in this legacy. 

Constance's traits are; 

- Neurotic

- Perfectionist

- Absent minded

- Bookworm 

- Clumsy 

Being a neurotic perfectionist who's also absent minded and clumsy sounds...not great to go through. She had one child (Brianne) with a vanilla, then got married to someone else later and had no children. She actually got pretty high up in her journalism career before quitting, which surprised me. 

Calvin and Brianne aged up to adult shortly after Naomi did, and shortly before that Sage aged up into elder. She actually reached the top of her career by that point, but I'm writing her promotions as being slower in coming than they really are. 

Billy Caspian actually fathered one of Ruby Broke's (Calvin's mother's) kids. She's the oldest out of the Broke-Bagley children and named Deliah. Then he dumped her and she married Sherman Bagley. They had four kids together including Calvin. 

1.30 Judgement Day

Monday morning. Finals. Judgement Day, some of her classmates have been calling it. It certainly fits.

Naomi hurriedly eats her (extremely sugary) breakfast. With her mother in and out of concerts and her studying for exams this weekend, neither of them had the time to do grocery shopping. Naomi purchased a key-lime pie in a hurried daze the day before, only realizing an hour before the supermarket closed that there wasn't any food at home. 

She glances at the time- 10:00- and rushes to put the dirty plates of last night's and this morning's key-lime pie away so she can get changed. 

The dishwasher makes a sound similar to a groan before spewing smoke and water. 

"Why are you doing this to me!?" she squeals, a terrifying smile on her face, to either the dishwasher or the Watcher. Right now both of them are playing a sick joke on her. 

She doesn't have time to deal with it properly. When the bus pulls up, the puddle is mopped up but the dishwasher still sparking. She sends her mother a text promising to fix the machine once her exam is finished before hopping onto the bus. 

"Exam week, huh?" the bus driver remarks, seeing classic signs of little sleep and stress oozing out of Naomo's every pore. 

"Yeah," Naomi smiles tiredly, "At least it only lasts a week." 

"And then you're done with school!" 

Her smile fades slightly, "Yeah. Then high school will be over..." 

But what will be starting? Naomi still doesn't know. 

Right now her exam starts soon. All the teens are gathered outside, reviewing at the last minute, joking with their friends that "they're so screwed" and "didn't even read the summary of the summaries" or that, "You say that but you always get an A!" 

She doesn't engage in any of it. She leaves Brianne alone, who's reading her biology notes in a last-minute effort to cram in information, and only nods to Calvin, who seems just as tired and twice as impatient to get this over with as she is. 

Can we just start already? Naomi mentally pleads with the school clock. Because they only have one exam a day, the graduating high schoolers are only permitted inside the building at 11 instead of their usual school start time of 9. Naomi's grateful for the extra sleep and revision time, but right now she wants to be in front of that exam paper before her memorised facts and arguments slip away from her sleep-deprived brain. 

Finally, Mr. Benson comes out of the building with a megaphone. 

"12th grade Biology students, please file in this way..." 

She takes a deep breath. She's as ready as she'll ever be... 

...which is what Sage is also telling herself. Today marks another concert, but she can feel that she's on the verge of a promotion. If she can get their last concert in this series preformed without a hitch, she knows she'll be on the fast track to a permanent spot on the orchestra. Then she'll get to travel with them on their gigs in neighboring cities! 

She can do this. It's what she's worked for her entire life. 

The concert goes well. When Ms. Lin congratulated her and talked about Sage's "bright future" with the orchestra, she knows it's a done deal. 

She's officially, solidly, a part of the Riverview Orchestra now. 

Her elation carries her through repairing the dishwasher. Naomi's promise to fix it is casually forgotten; she has her final exams! It's important that her daughter study, after all. 

Or work, as it happens. Shifts stop for no event, not even her finals. Naomi's boss was surprised when she turned up for work with all the part-time teenaged workers around town taking time off for their exams. But he didn't say anything. If she wants to work, well, he's not going to stop her. 

Work is what serves as the foundation of this family, after all. It brought Sage here and by proxy, brought Naomi here. Into existence. To her current job. And...beyond. 

Sage hasn't put down her bass since fixing the dishwasher hours ago. Now that she has finally been given her own bass she can't stop playing it. She's always been good at the bass but literal years without regular practice have made her rusty. 

Can't have that. 

Sage cannot afford distractions. 

And Naomi needs her rest, after all. 

She has finals. 

She has finals. 

Finals. 

She has finals. 

FINALS. 

She brushes her teeth vigorously, once, twice, three times. 

It's not uncommon for her to check if her teeth are really clean. Bad breath makes a bad impression, after all. 

But this particular morning it's not her breath that she's worried about, it's her hands. She got ink all over them during her biology test! And no matter how hard she scrubs... 

It feels like the ink won't go away. 

The soap runs out. She stares blankly at the sink, wondering what to do now. 

She has an afternoon exam, leaving her plenty of time to revise. 

But she can't. Her geometry notes look like hieroglyphics to her, her history summary mocks her with names of treaties she can't remember the signatories and ratification dates of, she feels like she doesn't know how to study how to interpret literature... 

So she takes a much needed break. The laundry needs to be done anyways. 

She has finals. 

She calls Michelle. 

"Hey, I was wondering if you had time to go over history together..." 

But Michelle is busy studying for their geometry final, the one that very afternoon.

She calls Brianne. 

"If I look at one more fucking special triangle, I'll end up burning my textbooks," Brianne snaps angrily. Geometry was never her favourite subject. 

Three hours before the exam. Naomi consults her geometry text book. 

Two hours. She closes the text book. 

She's not making much headway. She dials another number. 

One and a half hours. Calvin shows up to study. Naomi tries to hug him in greeting, relieved that someone else is there. 

"Whoa, whoa, just friends, remember?" 

Naomi looks down, embarrassed and confused, "I wasn't...I hug my friends too, Calvin." 

Calvin looks down, now embarrassed himself. "Oh well, uh... I don't do hugs."

"I see. I'm sorry, I should've thought about-," 

"Yeah, yeah whatever. Look, this is awkward now and I don't want to confuse myself before the test. Sorry." 

Without another word, he takes off towards the school. One hour to go. 

They have finals. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN: FINALS 

The most stressful, terrible wonderful period of any school year! 

You see people react in many different ways to the stress of exams. Some clean obsessively to procrastinate, or keep cooking, or talk to their friends, use the internet, etc. Naomi seems to be under the cleaning category, I'd say Calvin is the internet/going out with friends type (so is Brianne, though I would say she cares about her grades more than Calvin does. She probably also calms her friends down before the test or gives them angry pep talks). 

I know that sims don't have final exams. And I probably won't bring them up in future generations. But Naomi's teen days were super repetitive and I wasn't sure what to write to shake it up a bit. Sooo finals! 

I also finally caved and gave Calvin a makeover and bought Sage some instruments other than the guitar. She was playing the drums a few chapters ago, though she mainly plays the bass and guitar around the house. 

"Michelle" is also probably Jon Lesson's daughter, but Naomi's generation was so long ago in my save file that I can't find the Lesson family tree to confirm. I might have to get his grave out, wait for his ghost, and use some NRaas magic to find out. He never married so his last name wasn't passed down to any of his kids. I also could not remember her actual name (I think it started with an S). My current save is deep into generation 4 territory so she's probably not around anymore for me to check either. 

1.29 Capitulate

Exam season is coming up soon. Naomi's been staying up late "studying" (read: freaking out), working, and actually studying for several days now. Coffee tastes terrible and it makes her even more anxious and hyper but she can't afford to fall asleep during class. So she drinks the coffee, even if she grimaces while doing it. 

On top of that, she's in debate club now. It all happened when she gave a good speech in Simlish class and the teacher asked her to sit in on one meeting of the club. Now... She's not sure why, but they asked her to lead their team tonight in their special debate; a students vs. teachers debate on banning cell phones in the class room. 

She can't wait for the next week to be over. Hell, just getting through tonight is going to be a struggle. 

But at least she'll have some support in the sidelines... 

***

Naomi hops out of the car and sprints to the school. The dress code for the debate is strictly formal, so she had to run home and change her clothes. The entire debacle has taken up an hour of her time, making her nearly late for this review session. Her team needs to prepare their arguments! 

...and then she drives home to get changed and study for exams.

She's still jittery from wonder and nerves; they did well! She managed to argue rationally and calmly, and her teammates defended their pro-cell phone stance to the best of their ability. 

Afterwards, the team gave her a plastic trophy for being "such a good captain." She's not sure if she would go that far, or if they just wanted to be polite, but looking at the trophy makes her grin. 

Her team did her proud! 

She arrives home, the smile still on her face. 

"Hello mother. How are you?"

Sage looks at the nice dress her daughter is wearing, the makeup, and new hairstyle... 

"Oh so is this why you took the car? To go on a date? I thought you were going to debate club." 

Naomi looks away, struggling to keep tears and frustration from showing on her face. 

But she's not very successful. 

"I was at debate club. Tonight was our formal debate. We won." 

Sage smiles, "Oh you did? Why didn't you tell me? I was home today, I could've watched-," 

"You never asked! I didn't want to waste your time, like I did with ballet. I did it on my own, just like you wanted! I went and debated and then came straight back because exams are coming up! And if I don't study I'm going to fail and my future will be over, mother! Over!" 

Mortified that she just back-talked her mother, Naomi runs to her room. 

She wrenches the door open... 

And then slams it shut. 

Sage stares off into the distance, suddenly uncomfortable. How was she supposed to know that her debate was tonight? Naomi didn't even tell her! She shakes her head. 

Teenagers and their outbursts. I suppose this will just need time to blow over. 

Lots of time. 

Right now, however, is not the time to mope. As her tears dry, Naomi opens up her geometry notebook and rummages around for her graphing calculator in her desk. 

The plastic trophy sits on her desk, essentially forgotten. 

There are exams coming up, after all. 

She's not sure what the time is when her vision swims and she can't look at numbers anymore. She tells herself that she'll just have a five minute nap... 

A very long five minutes. 

***

Naomi wakes up the next morning, a Saturday, with barely enough time to do her chores and get ready... 

For her revision session with Michelle, her history classmate. 

"I don't get it," Naomi sighs with frustration, "If the alliance was falling apart, why didn't the..." she flips through her summary, "Confederation of Simliness and er...the Simly conglomerate- what the hell kind of names are these?- try to fix it?" 

"Past problems," Michelle states, as if it's obvious, "They secretly had tensions building up for decades and the alliance was just convenient because they both needed resources at the time. It all came back to haunt them as soon as either side stepped even a little bit out of line." 

Naomi claps her hands, "Ahhhh. That makes sense. Why doesn't Mr. Benson explain it like that? I have all these confusing notes about their bad relations with the Empire of Simmetry but nothing about their actual allies!" 

Michelle shrugs, "I dunno, maybe for him it made more sense? Overall the alliance was doomed to fail and they severed ties." 

Naomi adds some footnotes to her summary. "I'm never going to get through the founding of Simnation in time! I have to go to work at 6," Naomi laments. 

"And I have to be home by then too. It all makes sense when I explain this stuff to someone else, but I'm helpless when I have to review it by myself," Michelle commiserates. 

***

At 5:15 the girls decide to call it a night. 

"Thanks for helping me. That summary was so confusing; I guess I should know better than trust Anita for notes..." 

"Yeah, she kinda hates your guts." 

"I know!" 

Michelle giggles, "She thinks everyone's after her man. Did you hear that Bob broke up with her again?" 

Naomi laughs, and then furrows her brow, "I don't think we should be gossiping about them..." 

"Is it really gossip when it's public knowledge?" Michelle snarks, "But anyways, I do have to go. Thanks for the review session! Sorry that we couldn't get through industrial revolution." 

"No, it's fine, you helped me so much. I'm surprised we got as far as we did considering how many times I had to ask you to explain more..." 

Michelle waves off Naomi's apologies, "Like I said, I learn by explaining, so you helped me out a lot!" 

The girls hug and Michelle calls her dad to pick her up. 

"See you on Monday.!" 

The day of the first of their finals. "See you then!" 

Sage comes home late, well after Naomi has returned from work and called it a night on her studying. Instead of chastising her for being awake, like Naomi expected, or going straight to her room as Sage normally does, Sage enters Naomi's bedroom and asks her to play chess. 

Naomi moves a pawn forward. "Is everything all right, mother?" Naomi asks politely, if tersely. What she really needs to be doing right now is studying, or napping so she can study again. But she's never played chess against anyone, much less her mother, and she's not one to be rude. She knows how the pieces move, and hopes that it will be enough.

"Yes, I had a concert tonight. It went very well, we got a standing ovation." 

Naomi forces a smile, "That's lovely, mother." 

Sage carefully moves a pawn forward, "You're nearly an adult, Naomi," she begins what sounds like an awkward conversation with a non-sequitor, "Politeness and etiquette will only get you so far. Moving past disagreements is also essential in any relationship. Especially if you still need things from that person. Employment, housing... just support, generally." 

Naomi moves her knight, "I see." 

Sage moves another pawn, "For example; I've moved past the prom incident." 

Naomi moves her knight back to its original place and says nothing. 

"I feel that we've had yet another misunderstanding," she slides her bishop diagonally several spaces, "That we both need to move past. For the future of our mutually supportive relationship as family." 

Naomi moves her other knight silently. 

Sage uses the bishop to take the knight. "Don't you agree, Naomi?" 

Naomi uses her pawn to capture the bishop, "...I suppose so." 

Sage slides a pawn forward two spaces, "Good. So you are no longer upset?" 

Naomi uses her knight again, "No, mother." 

"I'm proud of you for being so diplomatic," Sage moves her bishop one black space diagonally, "I can see why you did well in your debate.

Naomi moves her pawn out of the way, not seeing that she's left her rook open, "Thank you, Mother." 

Sage takes the rook. 

Sage smiles warmly, "I'll capitulate to you, Naomi. It's late and we both should rest." Sage gets up from the chair and smooths down her dress, "Don't stay up too late." She walks out of the room, closing the door with a soft click. 

Somehow, it doesn't feel like a victory.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN: I had to pull up a picture of a chess board layout to have any idea of how the pieces could move. I like playing chess but am terrible at it. The moving the knight back and forth moves Naomi uses are not good moves (if you couldn't tell :P) She got rid of Sage's bishop and saved one of her pawns, but lost a bishop, a knight, and a rook, all very valuable pieces. 

I feel like writing anyone playing chess makes them seem cold and manipulative, since they do have to be to win, I suppose. 

I also played the entire game of chess out after moving the pieces around as described in the chapter. "Sage" won (she was playing the black pieces as seen above). But again, it was Marcy v. Marcy, so no brilliant tactics were used XP 

Also I completely forgot that Naomi also did debate club until I started writing this chapter. Sorry for that coming out of nowhere!