Welcome back to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: A Bradford Legacy Asylum Challenge. After two

weeks, Melanie, the controllable, has all the skills she needs for her LTW career (Criminal Mastermind),

and half of the friends, but the criminal career still hasn’t turned up in the paper. The inmates are starting

to lose their grip on reality, and they’re not closer to getting out than they were when we started.

Will the criminal career ever show up in the paper, or is the asylum doomed? Read on to find out.

As you can see, things have gone from bad to worse. Melanie’s the only one doing okay aspiration wise,

because she’s a Knowledge Sim and she gets boosts every time she gains a skill point. But everyone else

has joined the Worry Hands Brigade (copyright to peasant007), and it’s very amusing for me, since all the

inmates are characters who have annoyed me in some way.

Right now, Melanie is rolling wants related to gaining cooking skill points, and since I want her platinum for

when she does get to go to work I’m obliging her. Plus, more cooking skill = better meals = less inmate

hunger complaining.

Not that they care, since they’re still obsessed with the other objects in the house. Jan’s been

monopolizing the dance sphere, much to the Professor’s chagrin. He’s been crying a lot lately. Hopefully a

full-on breakdown isn’t too far away.

Rebecca, on the other hand, likes the telescope. I keep telling myself that she’s searching for a way out.

Sorry, but you in an empty neighborhood with no subhoods attached. You’re stuck. *evil laugh*

Muriel seems to have learned her lesson with the dance sphere, and she’s using the synthesizer thing. I

never realized what strange noises it makes, since I don’t use it in my legacy. But if you ever want a weird

soundtrack for your story, check it out.

Everyone’s obsessed with the synthesizer, actually.

So much so that they ignore their more basic needs. It’s especially funny when the object that would solve

their distress (in Timothy’s case, the shower) is right next to them and NOT IN USE. This experience has

really made me question some Sims and their ability to take care of their basic needs.

Every day that the criminal career doesn’t show up in the paper, I have Melanie call one of her

acquaintances to bring their relationship up enough so that she can invite them over.

I’m using the same strategy I use when trying to get college Sims into a Greek house or the Secret Society.

Get their friendship up enough to kicky bag, then play until their daily relationship score is at least 80.

From there, they’ll be Best Friends after a few days, and then BFFs after that.

It also helps that this guy is an AL Social Townie, one of the Bohemians to be specific. An Earthy Hug and

a story about Art later, and their relationship is already at 20. Jackpot.

What’s everyone else up to while Melanie’s busy making friends?

Well, they’re getting their butts kicked by the dance sphere…

…or not, if you’re Jan (she really is getting good at this. I’d love to see how many body skill points she has

at this point).

But mostly, they were worried. Very, very worried about EVERYTHING.

Muriel and Matthew each got a little boost. Without knowing, I’m guessing it’s from talking about a hobby.

Of course right after the boost, she hopped in the dance sphere…

…got booted out…

…and lost them again. I can’t be sure, but I think Matthew may have saved her from her second aspiration

failure.

Melanie needed to empty her bladder or something, so I let Boho boy wander around while she did so.

This looks Nicole is crying due to lack of aspiration points, but it’s not. She and Boho boy got into an

argument over something, and it made her cry.

And then just a few moments later I look up to see this. Yup, for unknown reasons, Timothy has decided to

kick Boho boy’s butt.

All Timothy’s time on the dance sphere paid off. He emerged victorious.

After that, I had Melanie send Boho boy packing. I didn’t need any more fighting from outsiders.

Melanie’s become quite the chef. I’ve been having her cook two batches of whatever meal it is, so

everyone can have at least one helping. If she does this once a day, the inmates don’t need to cook for

themselves.

But despite having their basic needs met, the inmates still aren’t happy.

Not happy at all. Is it wrong that this makes me happy?

But this was the crowning glory of the week. The Prof finally lost it, and he started panhandling. Henri, I

hope you can see what I’ve reduced your late husband too.

Seriously, you have no idea how happy this made me. The only thing that might make me happier is if

Matthew were to join him.

But Matthew’s got problems of his own.

Melanie keeps checking the paper every day, but no criminal career. I’ll admit that I was this close to

cheating her the career, but I didn’t. This paper is Thursday’s paper, 18 days into the asylum. The first two

careers are not criminal, but then what happened?

Hallelujah! It happened at last. I had her take the job, even though it wouldn’t start until the next day, and

then I saved the game, just in case. I used the rest of the day to get her back up to platinum, and ready for

the next day.

The fastest way to get her aspiration meter filled was to get her that 9th cooking skill point she wanted.

Then I sent her to bed so she’d stay platinum until the next morning.

The next morning I had Melanie put out a few platters of gelatin, to ward off hunger until she could get

home and cook a turkey or two for them, and she headed out.

Now that Melanie’s gone for a few hours, let’s see what everyone gets up to.

For the most part, nothing changed. People were still on the verge of breakdowns…

… and they played with the synthesizer no matter what color their portrait background was.

The good Professor is still panhandling…

…and playing with the dance sphere when he’s not (and for the record, the shower was open at this point).

As planned, Melanie came home with her first promotion. Since the shift had already started, and since

there was still plenty of gelatin left, I had her walk to work so she could get two promotions in one day.

And yet again, aside from some tears and worry hands, they did okay.

Rebecca showed off her skill on the dance sphere…

…Matthew bickered with everyone…

…and Muriel strutted around in her underwear (seriously, this girl does not like clothes).

Rebecca ignored the empty shower in favor of a sponge bath.

The Professor did his best to pretend that everything was okay…

…but he really wasn’t.

Now two promotions in, I had Melanie make everyone omelets before she headed off to work.

Though there were some who didn’t appreciate her efforts.

Now that she’s working, everyone wants to be nice and social with her. It’s almost as if they understand

that the end is at least in sight now that she’s got the job.

Look at that shiny platinum plumb bob over her head! Just before the carpool came I had her order

groceries since the fridge was getting low. I knew that someone would accept them, even if she wasn’t

there. And Matthew made himself useful by doing so.

As you can see, everyone’s feeling pretty comfortable with each other at this point.

And they ate the omelets that Melanie had cooked before she left, so there was no need to cook for

themselves and set the house on fire.

Though they’re still a bunch of worrywarts.

Timothy decided to cheer Matthew up by whacking him with a pillow. I think it worked for while.

Rebecca continued her obsession with the dance sphere.

Muriel made beautiful…uh, well I guess we can call it music.

Jan and Matthew did their parts to keep the asylum neat and tidy.

And the Professor’s still looking for a little spare change.

Look who decided to do a walk by? It’s Meadow Thayer, Phily’s wife in my legacy ‘verse. I think she

approves of what I’m doing.

As Week 3 draws to a close, the Worry Hands Brigade (TM peasant007) is out in full force.

Of course, some of them would rather cry about things than worry about them.

Worry all you want, but it won’t do you any good.

Maybe you should have thought about this BEFORE you decided to be horrible people.

I love this shot, because Matthew’s miserable, but Melanie’s firmly in platinum. As it should be.

Rebecca would like to remind me that Worry Hands are all well and good, but there are some more

pressing need to deal with at the moment.

Since Melanie’s maxed out her cooking (which is why she’s platinum combined with learning Lifelong

Happiness), I decide to have her make lobster for everyone. Yeah, it’s a fire risk, but I can make sure she

doesn’t wander away from the stove. Besides, there are an awful lot of yellow portraits, so I’m guessing

that Rebecca’s not the only one who’s close to starving.

And it comes out perfectly. Before she can even start serving it everyone’s practically running over to the

table for a plate.

Melanie wanted to gain a logic skill point, and since I want to keep her platinum I oblige her. It kicked her

out of “look through” once night fell, so I sent her back to stargaze.

Bad idea.

Why does this happen when I don’t want it to? I can never get an abduction when I want one, but when I

don’t they happen all the time.

At this point, I was very glad of two things. First, and probably most important, that Melanie is a girl so I

won’t end up with alien spawn running about. Second, that I took out the larger household hack that I had

in place for filming purposes.

And is it wrong that the thing I was most upset about was the fact that she was *thisclose* to reaching the

next skill level and an aspiration boost?

A few hours later, Melanie came back. A few people cheered, but most were very upset by the whole

experience.

Most especially Melanie. Poor girl. I did not intend for this to happen, believe me. From now on, I’ll only

make you look through the telescope during the day. I promise.

The abduction marked the end of week 3 of the asylum. She is at level 4 of criminal career.

I’ll leave you with a picture of a very stinky Professor and his aspiration desperation.

I’m actually done with the asylum at this point, so the week 4 write up should follow shortly. Until next time!