Dresden College: fall 2086

October 2086. Josie Booth is 19, Ariel Beech is 18, Drake Cannon is 18. 


It's not exactly that I *want* to play more than one university. To be quite honest, it is kind of a chore, lol! But I find it unrealistic to have only one choice for higher learning for my sims.

So, to broaden their options, I would like to introduce Dresden Arts College, located in Old Town Ironwood. (Exterior of this building came with Windenburg, but I gutted it and redid the interior completely.)

Dresden Arts College is a small, quaint, quiet, and very specialized arts college. They get the same 3 sim-days of gameplay per quarter as SNU students, and they have excellent arts professors here. Tuition is a little cheaper at $900/quarter instead of $1200 at SNU because SNU still has the advantage of a large campus and a full range of majors, facilities, and opportunities. Admissions at Dresden are usually strict since it only accepts a maximum of 8 students rather than SNU’s 12, and it favors students who want to pursue arts, music, and humanities. Other students can study here if they are accepted, but it wouldn't make a lot of sense for them.



Ariel sometimes wishes she'd applied to that party college instead.

Unlike Sierra Nova, students at Dresden won't find a bustling city nearby or any lively nightclubs. They will find a lot of history and an inspiring creative vibe throughout the old converted cathedral.


The building enters into a well-stocked library. Students generally walk around in their pajamas before classes start. Sometimes even during classes, depending on how tired they are.


The library in front leads into the performance hall at the back.


The group study area is quiet sometimes and filled with lovely (or terrible) music at other times, depending on who is practicing in the neighboring performance hall.


On the second floor, they have a small kitchenette to practice their culinary arts skills. The dining area is the most recent addition, and it will probably need to be expanded once the enrollment grows. Students have requested a bar—for mixology study, of course! The dean is considering their request, but suggests they learn their drink mixing from books for now. It's probably for the better.


The second floor is also home to another highlight of this campus--a large and sunny arts studio where students can practice painting, sculpting, and woodworking.


The third floor houses the girls' lounge.


There is room for four girls upstairs, and four boys downstairs.


The boys rooms and lounge are in the basement. (We keep the boys in the basement like trolls, lol!)

Dresden is strikingly more conservative than SNU with its separate lounge areas, although students are welcome to hang out in whichever lounge they like from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm. Then it's quiet time. There is no hot tub here, no sauna, no double beds, no scandalous shrubbery for students to dive into for some saucy shenanigans. The curfew and rules here make Dresden a more appealing choice for prudish helicopter parents when they send their children off to college.


Professor of Arts is Phoenix McCullough, an accomplished painter and now Dean of this university. We are lucky to have poached him all the way from Lake City University!


Guest lecturer this year, teaching writing, is novelist Louise Fontenot.

***

In October, the students are finally getting settled into their new surroundings and schedules.

Josie and Drake met at Coolidge House where her parents are Supper Club members, and he works as a bus boy. They've been carrying on this very chaste flirtation for two months now.

Ariel thinks that Josie and Drake are both plenty nice enough, but it's awkward when the only other two students are a couple. She looks forward to next year to see what new students join them here. Cute boys, she hopes, and lots of them. She thinks Drake is cute, although he's a little weird and dating her roommate. She thinks Professor McCullough is very cute too, but very married and nearly three times her age.  

Student life is quiet this year, although Ariel knows that this will never be a very rowdy place to study. She was sold on the pamphlets advertising the magical Copper Island Village and dance parties on the bluffs. Well, if those dance parties exist, Ariel has yet to be invited to one. She's holding out hope, though. 

For now, she makes plans to head downtown to see if there are any fresh faces to meet.


Unfortunately, Ariel's face had other ideas. She swears it didn't look that bad at home in the dim bathroom lighting. She'd rather hide in her bed than meet anyone right now, so she grabs the bus back home to the dorm instead.


Josie and Drake continued to enjoy their night out.


Josie has been trying very hard to woo this boy.


He's a little strange, she thinks. She isn't sure most times whether he's just not that into her or just very chaste. She'll hope for the latter, because she really wants him to like her back.


Two months in, she finally gets a very sweet kiss out of him.


It's such a lovely spot for a first kiss, she thinks. It's the kind of memory she'd like to recall in their future when they talk to their children about their perfect first kiss. But the kiss is more of a short peck and it doesn't promise anything more.


The next morning, Josie confesses that she finds him irresistible, which doesn't go over as she hoped.

"What is it? Are you gay?"

"No, I'm not gay,"

"Are you saving yourself for marriage?"

"I don't think so."

Josie didn't ask if he thought she was ugly, because she was afraid of what his answer might be.


"Okay. Well. Maybe it's just too much pressure."

"Yeah, maybe," he said. So she figured she was onto something.

"We won't force it. Can we be friends, though? I mean, I guess we should try. This is a really small campus and we're both stuck here together for two more years."

Friendship seems doable. They both really like spending time with each other. Whatever road block has Drake not wanting to take things further isn't something that Josie wants to pick at.

***

Halloween this year falls on a Thursday night, with a light course load the following day, so they all decide to check out the Fall Festival at Coolidge House. Drake and Josie dress up as matching pirates.


Ariel is a fairy.



Josie's parents have a membership here at Coolidge House, so she runs into them as well. She has no idea what her father is dressed as. A housekeeper?


Ariel takes her pumpkin carving very seriously.


Other local families enjoy the festivities.


Stephanie is here working tonight. Lily and Willow came with their grandparents, and Justin is home with the baby.


There were a lot of fairies here this Halloween. Miss Jessica, the town's elementary school teacher, versus Josie's mom in the battle of the sexiest blue fairy.


Willow is a hot dog! :D


Ariel is probably the most performative of the Dresden students. She gathered a group around the campfire to tell a spine-chilling ghost story. In her first year, Ariel declares a communications major, but she's torn between a focus in performance arts or political science. She's been advised that the job prospects in politics are probably a surer bet than any acting work, but she is inclined to command attention. That could be good for her in either discipline.

Josie is a music major and is already an accomplished violinist at the age of 19. She earned a violin scholarship to study at Dresden.

Drake is studying culinary arts.


At some point in the night, Josie sat with Drake on the edge of the fountain to talk.

"This is where we first met," she told him, wondering if he remembered that moment with the same exciting nostalgia as she did.

"Heh," he chuckled. "Was it?"

Or maybe he didn't remember that moment at all.

***

footnotes: Josie met Drake // Dresden lot tour, floorplan pics

gameplay notes: Josie pulled out a "confess attraction" on Drake autonomously. I could have told her that wouldn't end well, because it never does! But it was done before I could stop it. Their friendship bar is very high and they've been flirting forever, so perhaps she hoped. Nope. He wasn't having it. She got shot down so hard. 

What is his problem, exactly? I'm hesitant to declare what his road block is, but I'm gonna throw out one theory—he seems to have very distinct tastes in women... um, he likes very refined mature women. He rolls whims for his boss, Sharon (she wouldn't go there) and his professor, Louise (she's married and wouldn't go there, either. 

Poor Josie doesn't even have a clue, but I suspect she's really not his type. Or well, maybe in fifteen years she might be, lol!