Asylum: Chapter 14
As you can gather from the title, we've crossed the wire and come up triumphant in our little challenge here. Before we head for the Winner's Circle for that last day, I just want explain the slight delay on this chapter. We had a bit of tragedy here with one of our kitties, Thud. He was a sick kitteh but had been doing better of late. Sadly, not long after I posted the previous chapter he took a serious turn for the worse. Needless to say, I haven't felt overly inspired to write of late.
Thud sim-carnation joins Sim-Keth's household, where she can give him a long and happy life and keep him well fed on Kitteh Elixir. Too bad we don't have that in RL :'(
But now, without further ado, let's join the patients at Wainwright Asylum. When we left them, it was Thursday afternoon and Lizbet had failed to bring home that final promotion.
Fortunately, Lizbet had several small, easy to fill wants which would help get her into a better mood before tomorrow rolled around. Of course, taking a shower would also get her into a better mood, but that wouldn't be happening until she fixed the frickin' shower. Van and Lorna weren't helping matters by getting in the way with their pillows. She could at least forgive Parson for being underfoot; he was trying to help out and clean, even if he did nearly get whacked in the head by the wrench a few times.
Like Lizbet, Wanda apparently had a small, easy to fill want or two herself. I had to stop and double check that the season was fall, not spring, with all the flirting and fooling around going on.
But there could be no flirting or fooling around for Lizbet. She still had a want spun up to earn a skill point, so I sent her to work on her body skills. Since she didn't have any body points yet, it wouldn't take her long to earn a few points and nudge her aspiration from green to gold.
Someone else needs his aspiration nudged from green to gold... or from red to green as is probably the case. Unfortunately, as a wealth sim I don't think skill building is going to earn Earl any aspiration points. Ah well. Hang in there Earl. Pretty soon I'll be able to buy you all the foliage you want.
Speaking of foliage, Raul decided he was going to go out and enjoy the nice pile of leaves Sim-SGT raked for us a few days ago. And despite it being fall, it must not be too cold out since Marie is staring at Raul in disbelief while wearing only her undies.
Wait... what's that I (don't) spot off to the side there?
*sigh* Yep. Someone made off with Gnutzo again. I have no idea who either. *headdesk* I checked everyone's pockets and nobody's gone out to retrieve him yet. I guess we'll just have to finish out without Gnutzo MMDCCCLXXVIII
Yes Parson, it is quite the mystery as to who stole Gnutzo. And no Van, I don't think Sim-Keth is the culprit. I'll check her pockets next time I play her, just to be sure.
After he got done whining in the living room, Earl started waving his arms and making "Feed Me" gestures, which usually means the fridge is low on food (although it can also mean he's too lazy to cook for himself) Lizbet needed a shower after working out anyway, so I sent her over to order some groceries before she went to hose off.
While they were waiting on the delivery driver, Earl decided on another way to while away his time instead of flailing madly at me.
Van decided he liked to watch.
Sorry Lizbet, there will be no kisses for you tonight. Not from the delivery man, not from the refrigerator, not from the groceries. I need to you fix some salad for everyone and then hit the hay. You've got a big day tomorrow.
Lizbet decided to up her best friends score during dinner by chatting up Raul over the chef salad...
And then tried to work on getting her fun level up a bit before she crashed. Unfortunately, she didn't make much headway in befriending Lorna because she (Lorna that is) kept winning all the rounds. I was not surprised in the least.
Lorna, however, did make some serious headway in befriending Van later on.
Yeah yeah. We get the idea you don't love Raul anymore. It's apparent every time you try to kick his a§§.
It's Friday morning and time for Lizbet to head back to her last day of work for the week. She's not in gold aspiration anymore, but she's good and green in all her needs. Hopefully that's enough to pull in a promotion.
If not... well... there's a good reason Lizbet's looking rather nervous *evilgrin*
While Lizbet's out of the office, the patients at Wainwright Asylum for the Slightly Deranged have free run of the residence. I'm rather nervous because, well, if something bad is going to happen it'll probably be today.
Raul starts the 'somethings bad' a-happenin' by waiting for Lorna to finish her brunch with Earl so he can go a few rounds with her. Also realize that there's a wall between he and Lorna (she's in the kitchen, he's in the common room) but that's not stopping him from starting and cracking his knuckles at her.
As we know by now, Lorna gives back as good as she gets. You'd think Earl would be used to the violence by now.
"But Earl, at least they're not beating each other with tennis racquets. Lorna's probably got a heck of a serve, don't you think?"
Lorna appreciated Parson's speculation of her impressive tennis skills so she complemented him on his... snow? Bwah???
Speaking of snow, Sim-Keth came dressed for it as she hurried over to shove Lorna for spying on her again. Nice to see my pregnant simmies finally dressing for the weather.
Yes Parson, I can't believe Lorna hasn't learned to leave the telescope alone during the day either.
This is when I began to realize that the aforementioned "something bad" was happening. I have 3 extremely tired people (possibly 4; I can't remember if Lorna was whining about being tired too) wandering around the living room but the double bed had no one sleeping on it. What the heck?
Now, occasionally my sims will glitch and throw up the sleep spiky balloons when it's some other need they're low on (bladder, comfort, etc.) But to prove it really was sleep they needed, Earl and Wanda passed out right in the middle of the living room. Lorna promptly began to point and laugh at Wanda. She's done this to Wanda before when she's passed out, so Lorna is apparently a point and laugh sorta girl. Parson's barely staying on his feet.
As you can see in the background, the three twin beds are occupied, but no one is in the double bed. Likewise, no one is napping on the couch. Something is afoot at the Circle K, er Asylum.
Zooming over to the bed, I clicked on it to see if I could queue Lizbet up to sleep in it, but didn't get any interaction options. Thinking this might be because she was at work, I paused the game, collapsed all the want and need panels, and switched to Parson for a quick second to test the bed. Nope, Parson didn't get any options to use the bed either, and he was awake (barely) and in the same building as the bed. I switched back to Lizbet, switched to buy mode, and tried to delete the bed, which gave me the message that it was in use. Great. Bed is glitched. So I turned on the debug options and did a "force error" on both sides of the bed in order to reset it. As soon as I unpaused the game, Parson and Lorna made a beeline for the bed.
But this didn't explain why no one was sleeping on the couch. As I thought back, the only person who had slept on the couch was Lizbet one night when she missed out on a bed, and I'd directed her to nap there. No one had slept on it voluntarily. That's when the light bulb slowly went off and I remembered I had a "no autonomous napping" hack in (because otherwise my sims prefer the stupid couch to their own comfy beds) Yeah, I should have turned this off at the start; it probably made the asylum a little harder than intended.
Now, the plus side of the glitchy bed (and people not being allowed to nap on couches) means that the day passed by quickly without any serious issues because everyone was asleep... at least until the three folks who's scored the single beds started waking up. As soon as Lorna started waking up, Marie headed right for her, cracking her knuckles.
I don't care how much you claim you're a lover, not a fighter, Marie. I don't think you and Lorna are going to kiss and make up after this one (and all the previous ones)
Just to give you an idea how much Lorna is loved in the asylum... Parson would rather cheer on Marie, even though he's sleeping with Lorna.
Rack up another win for Marie. I don't think Lorna's won a fight against her yet *laugh*
::Troublemaking ho::
::Man-stealing skank::
Ah, feel the love.
But wait! Lizbet is home from work. Did she get her promotion? Do I have to suffer through another week with these lunatics? I may just let them burn themselves to death if I do.
That yellow plumb bob doesn't look promising...
Ah, that looks much better! Hello Education Minister Lizbet. Hello 25,000 aspiration points. Hello platinum plumb bob. Now where are those asylum release papers?
Looks rather smug with herself, doesn't she? *grin*
I had a better shot showing Lizbet's pop ups, but my screen capture program ate it.
And at this critical, fateful (and rather snowy) moment, what are our other residents up to? Do they realize freedom is now within their grasp? Are they prepared for a life outside the asylum walls?
Wanda and Earl seem to be aware that something is up at least. Wanda looks very eager about something.
Raul and Marie are completely oblivious to the sudden change in their lives. Or maybe they aren't and this is their way of celebrating.
And Van... Van doesn't look too happy about something. Is Parson interrupting a Van and Lorna's private "freedom celebration"? *waggles eyebrows*
Before I total up the score, let's take a quick recap of our residents here at the Wainwright Asylum and see how they fared during their time here.
Although her stats and skills won't count in our final score, as our one controllable sim Lizbet had some pretty big responsibilities. We know she's got enough stats for her career, but how did she do overall, and how well does she relate to the other patients?
Lizbet, as you recall, is a Cancer Knowledge Sim. She managed to accrue 93750 aspiration points and the following skill levels: Cooking 5, Mechanical 8, Charisma 8, Body 3, Logic 10, Creativity 4, and Cleaning 9. (That's 47 skill points)
Her relationships with her fellow asylum-mates is a mixed bag. She is best friends with Raul and Van, in love with Parson, friends with Wanda, and almost friends with Marie (62/64). Her relationships with Earl and Lorna are in the single digits however (0/2 and 7/9 respectively). She also has one bolt each for Raul and Van, and two bolts for Parson.
Lizbet's relations with folks outside of the asylum consist mostly of sim-selves and sim-someones, with a couple extras thrown in. She is best friends with Sim-Keth, Sim-Lynn, Sim-SGT, The Captain, Bacillus (3 bolts), and Samantha Ottomas. She's just friends with Orrin (2 bolts), Sim-Lisa, and Quavi (2 bolts). Surprisingly, despite having 3 bolts for Taylor and a relationship of 90/92, they are not even friends. Heh. Could've fooled me. The only sim-someone she doesn't have a relationship with is former man-maid Cleveland Garth; they have negative bolts.
With this knowledge neatly in hand, let's move on the the one Asylum resident whose panels I've been wanting to see since this whole challenge started...
And that would be Parson.
Parson Quincy is an Aries Knowledge sim, but based off his aspiration score -- 18250 -- as a knowledge sim he's middling at best. Actually, considering how often he crashed after a fire, I'm impressed that he managed to tally up that many aspiration points. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that when I finally had a chance to see his panel, "Fire!!" was one of his 3 fears (I think he had a Sim-Lynn fear in there too). He was the only asylum resident -- including Lizbet -- with a Fire! fear. When it comes to skilling, Parson did pretty well. Too bad he rarely had the want to earn skill points rolled up; it wasn't often that I saw the aspiration point doodads over his head when he skilled. At the time Lizbet came home with her promotion, he had managed to accrue 26 skill points: 7 in cooking, 4 in logic, 10 in Creativity, and 5 in cleaning.
Parson wasn't an overly social person when he arrived at the Wainwright Asylum, although you wouldn't know that now. He is one of two asylum resident who are either friends or best friends with all the patients. He is best friends with Earl, Van, Lorna, Raul, and Marie. He is friends with Wanda (54/56) and has a crush on Lizbet. He also has 2 bolts for both Lizbet and Wanda, and one bolt for Marie. Outside the asylum, Parson only has relationships with 2 people. One is a -3/-5 relationship with Sim-Keth (two bolts though) and the other is his 96/100 crush on Sim-Lynn. With as obsessed as they are for each other (Sim-Lynn and Parson that is) I was a little surprised to find they only have 2 bolts. I wonder if theirs is one of those relationships that can be bumped to 3 bolts by just changing a turn on or two.
Now when it comes to relationships, there are a couple residents who have the 3 bolt aspect covered...
And those residents would be Earl and Wanda.
Wanda Hawgshead is a Libra Family sim who arrived at the asylum after experiencing a bit of failure in the "family" department. She's looking to take a second try at the family thing and it seems she's found the perfect person in her 3 bolt relationship with Earl Chilton. As a resident of the asylum, however, she's just idled away her time. Wanda earned 17250 aspiration points but only 22 skills points spread across cooking (7), logic (5), creativity (8), and cleaning (2). She has positive relationships (but no friendships) with all the other residents, as well as having a crush on Van and being in love with Earl. She has some acquaintances outside the asylum as well; her only best friend (heck, the only friend she's not in crush/love with) is townie Gigi Monroe but she is well acquainted with both Sim-SGT (26/16) and Reg Canton (36/30). While she has a negative relationship with Sim-Keth (-35/-37) she isn't furious with her. Earl isn't the only guy she has bolts for. She has one bolt for both Van and Orrin (I disrecall if she has one for Reg) but has negative bolts for both Raul and Cleve.
Now as for Earl...
Before he came to Middlington, Earl Chilton had been determined to be a financial success (Taurus Wealth sim) and he'd failed at it miserably. He checked himself into Wainwright asylum to try to pull himself back together, but failed there as well. He's done nothing but worry, panhandle by the mailbox, pass out, and complain about being hungry the entire time he was in residence. His achievements (or lack thereof) reflect that. In 47 days Earl had only managed to earn 8150 aspiration points and 11 skill points (6 in cooking, 2 in logic, 3 in cleaning). He was good friends with many of his asylum mates (especially the men). Other than the 100/100 love relationship with Wanda, he is best friends with Parson, Van, and Marie and has a 64/66 relationship with Raul. With Lizbet their relationship is only 1/3 and with Lorna... with Lorna it's -5/-6 (but they have one bolt). Outside of the asylum he knows virtually no one; with the Captain he is 6/8 and with Sim-Lynn he's all of 0/2 (but he's got two bolts for both of them and with Sim-Lisa). He and Sim-Keth, however, have -3/-5 but one bolt.
Only one other person did as poorly in the asylum as Earl...
And that would be Raul Vertpliski .
Truthfully though, even Raul didn't do as poorly as Earl. If anything, Raul grew as a person; he arrived at the asylum crushed by the criticism of his idol and by the end of his stay he was standing up for himself. His love for music (and obsession with his idol) had been replaced by his love for another, but for a Scorpio Pleasure Sim it was a long hard road to travel. On the way he only accrued 16750 aspiration points (still more than twice what Earl earned) and a mere 12 skill points (7 cooking, 5 cleaning). But Raul's a lover, not a skiller. This is obvious from the fact that he was in love with Lorna by the second week (he wised up about Lorna though) and when release finally came, he tallied both a crush and a love on his friendship panel. He was in love with Marie -- only fitting since she fell for him during the third week -- and somehow he had developed a crush on Van. I'm not certain how it happened either -- I never saw them being flirty with each other -- so I'm guessing they'd been indulging in the mistletoe pretty heavily. When it comes to just friends and acquaintances though, Raul's a little skimpy. He made only 3 best friends (Lizbet, Parson, and townie Reg Canton) and was casually acquainted with Earl (47/48) and Sim-Lynn (49/51). He does have a pretty negative relationship with Sim-Keth (-18/-20) and as for Lorna... well... I guess no one's surprised that he's furious with her and that they're enemies (-41/-43). In fact, he has won the majority of his fights with Lorna. As for boltage, he's got negative bolts for Wanda, Sim-Keth, and Sim-Lisa, one bolt for Sim-SGT, and 2 bolts for Marie, Sim-Lynn, and the Sim Captain.
If Earl and Raul are partial failures in the friends and skilling department (although Raul did succeed in overcoming the reason for his residence at the asylum), then Marie Gracely is one of the success stories. She may be a (Capricorn) Romance sim, but she skilled like a fiend, earning 23500 aspiration points and 29 skill points (7 cooking, 5 logic, 10 creativity, 7 cleaning -- second highest total in the asylum) during her time at Wainwright Asylum. Before she arrived at the Wainwright Asylum, her husband had left her over her romancing ways. While she wasted little time (3 weeks) in finding a new love, this time around Marie was more cautious, taking things slowly with Raul and eventually winning him away from Lorna. Unlike most of her asylum-mates, who have more than one love/crush, Raul is the only person Marie is in love with although she has many friends and acquaintances. She is best friends with Parson, Earl, Wanda and Van, friends with Lizbet and Sim-Lisa, and acquainted with Orrin, Sim-Lynn, and Sim-SGT. She has one bolt for Parson, Earl and Orrin and two bolts for Raul (and only for Raul) Due to her frequent telescope use, Marie has a negative relationship with Sim-Keth. She is absolutely furious with Lorna and, at a -100/-100 relationship, is her total enemy. I'm sure that Marie winning every fight hasn't helped mend any fences between the two.
Lorna. Ah, Lorna. Lorna Stafford originally came to the Asylum to develop her people skills and become a friendlier person. (Gemini Popularity sim) Considering that we find her at the end of her asylum time with not one, not two, but three people furious with her, it appears her quest to become a people person is a FAIL. Other than the 2 people she is in love/crush with (Van, Parson) she has only one friend, and I'm not sure how she got it. She is best friends with townie Rodney Love. He's a teenager, so I'm not sure how they met. I must have had Lizbet greet him at some point, but she (Lizbet) has never called or invited him over. I do recall him calling several times for Lorna. I suppose I'll have to send him to college to join Lizbet's boytoy Taylor to see just what sort of bolts he and Lorna have for each other. Now, this isn't to say that Lorna doesn't know other people. She's got an 8/10 relationship with Sim-Lynn, a 14/16 relationship with Sim-Ange, a 48/50 relationship with Wanda, and an 83/85 acquaintance with Lizbet. But those three furious relationships overshadow all the rest. She's -75/-67 and furious with Sim-Keth but they're not enemies. She is enemies with Raul (-86/-89, furious) and Marie (-98/-98, furious) however.
Since it's obvious that Lorna wasn't spending her time learning how to make friends and influence people, what was she spending all her time on? No, it wasn't spent on getting down and dirty with Raul and Parson and Van, it was spent on... skilling. With a total of 32 skill points, she outpaced everyone, earning more skill points than any other resident with the exception of Lizbet. She finished with 7 cooking, 9 logic, 10 creativity, and 6 cleaning. That 9 logic explains Sim-Keth's intense hatred I guess. All those skill points added up to a hefty 28500 aspiration points, a total surpassed by only one other patient...
In the aspiration point race, Van Luff is the winner amongst the patients (excluding Lizbet of course). This shattered surfer (who was afraid of the waves in his bathtub when he checked into the asylum) was able to earn 42750 aspiration points and 28 skill points. Kind of surprising for a Leo Popularity sim. Placing third in the skill point race, he claims 7 cooking points, 6 logic points, 10 creativity points, and 5 cleaning points. He can also claim something no one else in the asylum can: he is best friends with all the residents. (Parson is close, being best friends with 6 of them). Moreso, he is also in crush/love with both Wanda and Lorna; he's only best friends with Raul, so that little crush appears to only be on Raul's side. Outside of the asylum, he's casually acquainted with a couple people, with a 26/28 relationship with Sim-Lisa and a 13/15 relationship with Cleve (the only resident with a relationship with The Cleve, probably because most of the time The Cleve is visiting, he's glued to the Sim-Captain). Van's constant telescope addiction has resulted in a -80/-82 furious relationship with Sim-Keth, however. Her poor trash can is going to be taking some serious kicking once everyone who's furious with her is released from Wainwright. And Release Day is here...
Before we can throw open the doors of Wainwright Asylum for the Slightly Deranged and let our residents go free, we do need to tally up the score. So how did we do? To quote straight from the challenge, scoring goes like this:
You begin with 100 points then:
The Good:
* never used influence = + 20 points
* each skill point your living fellow patients have at the end (you can look now) = + 1 point
* each 1000 aspiration points your living fellow patients have at the end (add them all together and then round up) = + 1 point
* each friend of the household = + 1 point
The Bad:
* every sim day that you remained institutionalized = - 1 point
* each roommates death = - 20 points
* each visitor death = - 30 points
So, on the good side, we never used influence (+20), the residents earned 160 skill points (26 + 11 + 22 + 28 + 32 + 12 + 29), 155150 aspiration points (18250 + 8150 + 17250 + 42750 + 28500 + 16750 + 23500), and 13 family friends. That totals up to 348 (20 + 160 + 155 + 13)
On the bad side... well, we didn't have any deaths, so no losses there. However, Lizbet and crew were residents at the asylum for 47 days, so that's a big -47. Also, I did play with a couple hacks that some could argue made the asylum easier (although the No Napping hack probably made it harder not easier). So while there is no penalty for hacks, to compensate for having them I'm going to add in a -30 penalty. That gives me a total penalty of -77.
How does this all add up? Let's see... 100 (base) + 348 (the good) - 77 (the bad) = 371.
Er, seems a bit high, compared to the other asylums I've read. Someone check my math (3 years of college calculus does not mean I can do simple math *laugh*) Hmm... looks right... Well, no one died and that's what causes the big hit. Not just the -20 penalty, but the loss of skill and aspiration points. I did some quick math and found that just losing Earl (who provided the least points to the total) would change my score to 299. Losing Van (the major contributer) would drop my score to 260. If I lost both of them I'd be down to 208. I suppose I should be lucky that there's not a penalty for Sim-Shrink visits or for fires (or both!). I'd be hurting if there was. *chuckle*
Lizbet and the other residents of the Wainwright Asylum finished in 47 days with a household value of §104,806 (lot value §32,702 and family funds of §72,104), 13 family friends, 14 fires, 15 visits from the sim shrink, and more fights than I can count (most of which were lost by Lorna).
Now, some people end their asylum stories as soon as their controllable sim steps out of the car, while others follow their residents for a while to see the new lives that await them when they're on their own. Those of you who think we're all done here and that I'm going to leave the Wainwright Asylum for the Slightly Deranged frozen forever at this point and our poor residents trapped in some sort of limbo, you'd be...
well...
*evilgrin*
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Labels: asylum, middlington
posted by Kethwyn at
7:26 PM
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