A Very Victorian Asylum Challenge - Part 3

Hello and welcome back to the third part of my asylum challenge, that also goes by the name, The Punishment of Marielle Hutchins. If you are unsure of who Marielle is, or why she needs to be punished, I

suggest you read chapters 15-20 of my Victorian Legacy.

But Marielle is not the only inhabitant of the Simdon-Leys Home for Irrational and Insane women, oh no,

she is joined by six other evil Maxis made sims, and one sweetheart of a legacy founder. They are: Brittany Upsnott, Sim State playable as characterised by Marina (Smoothiequeen87) in gen 1 of the

Boolprop Round Robin Legacy, Katherine Schehl from Lea (Thls0)’s Barsoom Legacy, Lisa Bauchman

from Gin (GintasticNecat)’s the Science of a Legacy, Meadow Munster-Enriquez from Katy (Hurrikaty)’sMunster Legacy, Melody Tinker, Bluewater teen as characterised by Gin in the second generation of the

Boolprop Round Robin Legacy, and Meredith Kimbrell from Jamie (DocGirlP)’s Bohemian Legacy. Finally the controllable sim is Aristide Xenobia, founder of LauriEmpress’s Legacy of Jubilee. She is a fortune

sim with the LTW to become the law.

Let’s go and see how they are faring.

Day 15.

After rising and finding that the bathroom was occupied (really the lack of decent bathing facilities is

ridiculous. What sort of person deemed it fit that eight women should share only the one bath? Have they not heard that cleanliness is next to godliness)? I decided to try my hand at the piano in the drawing

room.

As I have made mention in these diaries, I have not been able to concentrate fully when playing, not only that, but this instrument is far from the best of its kind, consequently, my ability seems to have suffered.

Brittany appeared to agree with this statement when she stood behind me jeering for a number of minutes.

As I have already stated, she is a bully who sets out to wound, but I have no intention of being wounded by her. Instead I played louder and louder, so as to drown her out.

It seemed to work, and she soon became bored and wandered off to find someone else to antagonise.

She did not have to go very far, since she soon came across Meredith, and challenged her to a game of rock, paper scissors. I do not think that Meredith takes too well to losing.

Staying on the subject of Meredith, she is still feeling the pressure of being locked up in this place. Even I am finding it tough, I will not deny it, but Meredith spends most of her days in tears, or acting...unwell.

She still thinks that she is a pirate and has commandeered the bathtub as her vessel. This causes strain amongst the rest of us when we wish to bathe, but so far nothing has been said to Meredith for fear of

upsetting her further.

As the weeks have gone on, it is now not unusual for me to come across one of my fellow inmates muttering to themselves, or wringing their hands. I fear that the conditions we are living in are driving

what little sanity remains in their heads away.

I have even had cause to worry about Ari at times, and I thought, next to me, she was the sanest person here. I have caught her talking to herself in the drawing room mirror again. I hope she does not get

worse. I think being the only sane person here would tip me over the edge into madness myself.

My sleep patterns have been severely disrupted by my incarceration. I am finding that I am in desperate need of a nap by the early evening, and as a consequence today I sought my bed before the sun had set.

I am certain the blame lies with inactivity. Yes I know we are meant to be partaking of physical exercise at least once a day, but I am starting to crave life outside of these walls, life in society where I can speak

to more than the same seven people I see day in day out in this place.

As a consequence of my nap, I missed exactly what happened next, and have had to rely on the testimony of the other inhabitants.

I had noticed when I had last seen Brittany that she did not look very happy. She had spent all day antagonising anyone she came across, flinging insults and wild accusations around like the mad woman

she is.

Apparently she cornered Melody in the bathroom and started ranting and raving at her. Apparently the argument was over a silly little thing: Melody had not cleared up her plate after fixing herself something to

eat, and that Brittany was using it just as an excuse to cause trouble.

By all accounts it worked, because Melody was very dismissive of her and told her that if it bothered her that much, then why did Brittany not clear it up?

I do not think that anyone expected what happened next.

Within minutes, so Katherine told me, the argument had degenerated into fisticuffs.

The incident the other week with the man in the hat told me that Brittany was not averse to resorting to

physical violence on occasion, but I had never expected her to resort to that with one of the other inhabitants of this place.

***

The man in the hat is Indy Vetinari from DrSupremeNerd’s Vetinari Dualegacy. He is also my simself’shubby, and found himself in several fights with Brittany when he visited the asylum at the end of week 1.

The noise of the fight was enough to wake me from my nap, and when I got to the foot of the stairs, it was to find out that Brittany had won the fight.

If we had thought that the fight was over, we were wrong. As I watched, Brittany started to shout at Melody. “Lazy, dirty, slovenly, cow.” she shouted, punctuating each word with a poke to Melody’s chest.

“Clear up your own tea things, don’t expect the rest of us to do it!”

This did not please Melody, and she slapped Brittany soundly.

I think that was the excuse Brittany was looking for, and another fist fight broke out between the two of them.

As with the first one, Brittany won.

I worry about the implications of these altercations. These two have to live in close quarters until one or other of them is released and I cannot see that happening in the near future. I wonder what effect their

enmity will have on the rest of us.

Melody’s plate was still sitting on the table when I entered the kitchen to get myself a snack. Cleaning is not my favoured choice of activity, but in this place, we do all have to pull together. I did think about

leaving it, after all I do not think that Brittany would be too happy if I interfered, but in the end I decided to clear it up myself. The smell was making me feel quite nauseous.

Melody saw me do this and thanked me for it. At first I was slightly worried when she approached me, in case she had wanted it left to make a point, so I was greatly relieved to find the real purpose for her

wanting to talk to me.

She seems to be a very...changeable person. There are times when talking to her, that it is very easy to

forget she poisoned her entire village as she attempted to make a married man fall in love with her. Say one wrong word though, and her entire demeanour will change.

I am endeavouring to stay on her good side at the moment.

One set of enemies in the house is enough for the time being.

Day 16.

I was awoken from my slumber by the sound of the piano in the room below. Katherine has been very

quiet of late, but it seems she wanted to make up for it today. She was banging frantically on the keys, making as much noise as she could.

In some ways I was glad to be woken early, since it meant I was able to get into the bathroom and bathe properly today.

However I had just finished and was about to vacate the room so that Lisa could bathe, when Meadow walked in and tried to pick a fight with me.

I have tried to keep things civil with Meadow, even though she has been...abrasive towards me on

occasion, because, to be frank, she scares me.

I can see very clearly why she was committed to this facility, and in fact I do not think that this is the best

place for her. In my opinion, she needs to be somewhere more...secure, with a stricter treatment programme, and more staff around to subdue her if she gets out of hand.

I was saved from having to reply to Meadow and her argument about my clothing (such an inconsequential thing to argue about when we have all been provided with our clothing by Dr Gavigan), by

the sounds of a ruckus upstairs. It appears that a night’s sleep has done nothing to temper the enmity between Brittany and Melody, and they were once again screaming at each other, pulling each other’s

hair and slapping the other person as hard as they could.

Once again Brittany came out on top. I am starting to think that this will become a regular feature of our

days.

God how I want to get out of here.

Despite the fact that we eat regular meals, myself and the other inmates are constantly hungry. I have not felt hunger pains like them since I was a teenager, and I was struggling to get enough food to feed me

and my ailing mother. But enough on that.

It is not unusual to find one or more of us picking at the leftovers in the larder to sate our hunger.

I feel I should make note of the fact that Meredith appears to be doing a bit better today. Rather than hoping into the bathtub and pretending to sail it around the Caribbean, she mopped up the mess from the

leaking taps.

It is looking almost certain that I am right about Brittany and Melody’s fighting becoming a regular feature of our days, Since I wrote my earlier entry for today, Meadow has witnessed another physical altercation

between the two of them.

She was in the device room, using the device, when Brittany stormed in looking for Melody.

It was not long before they were once again at each other’s throats.

There was one difference this time though, apparently Melody won.

I am certain that even if Brittany was upset by this event, she will not take it lying down. I fully expect that she will be seeking Melody out for another round.

The fact that there had been another fight completely passed me by, since I found something else to occupy my mind. I was certain I had found a grey hair earlier, and spent some time examining myself in

my hand mirror.

To cheer myself, I took a long bath, and took more care with my toilette to ensure my hair was neatly coiffured and my cosmetics enhanced my beauty.

I exited the bathroom to find Lisa and Brittany engaged in a friendly game of punch you, punch me.

I say friendly, but nothing stays friendly with Brittany for long. It makes me wonder how she became so popular while she was at finishing school. She once told me that she was the head of the society she

belonged to, but now I cannot help but speculate that she was elected to that position because everyone else in it was scared of her.

Lisa walked away as soon as she could, and I followed her.

She was muttering to herself, and it sounded like she was saying “nasty game, a nasty game for nasty

little boys like Norris. Not a suitable game for a lady such as myself, no, not suitable at all.”

She did not seem to notice that I was in the same room as her, so I left her to it.

I realised that I had not braved the device for a couple of days. I still hate it, but I worry that Dr Gaviganwill find out somehow if I have not been using it. (I really must endeavour to discover if Ari is reporting to

him at all on how we are all faring, and if we are following his instructions. After all, it is not as if he has come to visit the facility in all the time we have been here).

My timing was not the best as I entered the room. Meredith had just taken a turn on gyroscope, and the result was not pleasant.

After Meredith had cleared up her mess, I was still trying to get up the courage to have a go on the gyroscope myself, when Katherine entered the room and got into the device. I think I have now deduced

where she has been spending the majority of her time. She was able to make it change direction several times, and then stopped it and stepped out, slightly dizzy, but not ill.

I asked her how she managed to do that, and she said she would show me if I would step into the machine.

Katherine taught me how to shift my weight and how to stay focussed so that, although I was dizzy when I managed to stop the device, I was not nauseous. For the first time I am not terrified of this machine, and

feel that I could use it regularly in order to show Dr Gavigan that I am making progress and should be released.

Day 17

It is perhaps not surprising by now that there was another argument between Brittany and Melody this

morning. Melody had apparently left her breakfast things and Brittany was not happy about it, having already told her not to leave her washing up for others.

I cannot help but think the reason Brittany keeps starting fights with Melody is because Melody will not be

cowed. She gives as good as she gets and is more than willing to defend herself physically if necessary. Brittany cannot stand this, and keeps trying to make the point that she is the queen bee here, and we

should all do as she tells us.

Whatever the reasoning behind Brittany’s continued attacks on her, Melody is not letting them upset her. No sooner had Brittany gone inside, when she soon collared Katherine and asked her to join her in her

daily exercise.

The rest of the day was very subdued. We have been here for some time now, and I think that others are beginning to wonder if we will ever be released.

I have to believe that I will be.

I have to.

I cannot spend the rest of my life in this place.

I cannot die in this place.

I just...can’t.

Buoyed by my success at controlling the gyroscopic device last night, I decided to give it another go this afternoon.

Maybe it was due to the fact that I was not in a particularly happy mood, or maybe last night I had been very lucky, but my turn on the device did not go well today, and I once again loathe it.

I have one more piece of drama to record before I retire to bed. I was on my way to one of the bedrooms, when I came across Melody crying in the hallway. This was a sufficiently unusual event for me to stop

and ask her what was wrong.

She confided in me that she had had an unfortunate accident by the side of her bed, and that Brittany had walked into the room not long afterwards and had discovered what she had done.

The result was, perhaps, inevitable.

As was the fact that in her distressed state, Melody lost.

I made a few sympathetic noises, and suggested that she would feel better after a nice relaxing bath.

Selfish as it is, I did not want to spend too long talking to her, since it was getting late, and I did not want to miss out on a bed for the night.

Day 18.

The days ‘ere have now become routine, and it is not unusual to find two or more of us indulging in the

same activities at the same time. I always seem to find myself practising the piano at the same time Arilikes to stand in front of the drawing room mirror and talk to ‘erself.

We are still receiving visitors to the asylum, and it is Ari’s job to make sure that they are well looked after and...entertained. Today’s visitor seemed less inclined to gawp at us inmates, and spent most of ‘er time

questioning Ari about the facility and Dr Gavigan. It was a nice change of pace not to be treated like an animal in a zoo.

This visitor stayed all day, even having a go on the gyroscopic device before she left. I wonder if it filled her with the fear it does me.

I must admit I am feeling un’appy today, and as the day ‘as worn on, I’ve got worse.

Unable to face being round anyone else, I am going to bed. ‘Opefully I will feel better in the morning.

Day 19.

I ‘ad a dreadful night’s sleep. I woz plagued by nightmares that I would never get aht of this ‘ell ‘ole.

I woke up wiv a start, and knew there woz no point trying ter get back ter sleep again, so I got up.

‘Ow ‘as this all ‘appened to me? I ‘ad such big plans fer what I woz going ter achieve wiv my life.

A nice ‘ouse, ‘andsome ‘usband, position in society. Everyfing I didn’t ‘ave as chid. Everyfing my muvver

didn’t ‘ave.

Instead I’ve ended up ‘ere.

At least I still ‘ave my looks.

If, when, I get aht of ‘ere, I’ll ‘afta try again ter get back what I ‘ave lost. My looks will be instrumental to

that.

I ain’t the only one in ‘ere who is ‘aving a bad day. Most of us ‘ave found today very trying in way or anuvver.

Although fer some it woz of course worse.

Meredith woz making ‘erself somefing to eat at lunch, when she wet ‘erself.

She woz so ‘ungry that she stood back up, turned round and continued to make ‘er sandwich.

Brittany and Melody ‘ave been fighting none stop.

Even Ari ‘as ‘ad bad luck today. First fings didn’t go too well when she was trying to tune the piano.

Then she got soaked as she tried to fix the ‘and basin.

I cannot tell if Meredith’s accident ‘as affected ‘er or not. She ‘as been so lost in ‘er own world recently, it’s difficult to tell.

I do know that she woz a bit creepy this evening as I woz playing the pianah.

I got to talking ter Meadow and Kathrine later. It’s strange, but nearly all of us ‘ere ‘ave been affected by an important family, a family where the founder ‘ad started wiv nuffing, but ‘im and ‘is descendents ‘ad

built up fortunes and influence in the towns they lived in.

We talked for hours and I ‘ad no idea ov the time until the sun came up.

Day 20.

After talking all night, I was famished and ‘eaded over to the larder. This didn’t please Brittany, ‘oo woz

also ‘ungry.

“Can’t you see I’m starved?” She shouted at me. “Move out of the way so I can get myself something to eat.”

I moved out ov ‘er way, not wanted to get inter an argument wiv ‘er when I woz so tired.

Or so ‘ungry.

I woz not the only one ‘oo regretted being up all night. Whenever I saw Katherine today, she wozmuttering to ‘erself and wringing ‘er ‘ands.

I woz so tired I made my way to a bed by the afternoon, and slept the rest of the day away.

Day 21.

I slept soundly (no nightmares last night), but when I woke to anuvver day ‘ere, I lost it.

I want to go ‘ome so bad, it ‘urts.

My mood was not ‘elped by Brittany shouting at me after I had used the lavatory, because she wanted to use it, and wanted me out of the room.

I shouted back at ‘er, telling ‘er that I woz about to leave the room when she walked in and started shouting at me.

She ain’t the only one ‘oo wishes there were adequate toilet facilities in this place.

In fact as we were arguing, we were joined by Katherine and Meadow, both of whom wanted to relieve themselves too.

As soon as I could, I extracted myself from the argument with Brittany and left.

By all accounts, Meadow didn’t make it to the toilet, and ‘ad anuvver accident. I ‘eard she stood up and calmly walked out of the lav, across the ‘all to the barfroom, as if nuffing ‘ad ‘appened.

I wonder how she really fought about what ‘ad happened. This is the third time she ‘as done that, that I know of. It must ‘ave affected ‘er somehow.

Katherine seems to be doing better today, and I ‘eard ‘er trying to cheer Melody up as I walked past the bathroom. She really does ‘ave a caring attitude, and I wonder why it was that the Carter family found it

necessary to ‘ave ‘er removed as Monica’s carer.

***

This is something I’ve rarely seen: an autonomous cheer up. Considering that Katherine is the smelly one

in this picture, and I dread to think what her aspiration is currently like, I was surprised to see her do it.

The piano needed tuning again today. It cannot be my playing that ‘as done it, since I ‘ave not played it for a couple of days.

***

Y’know I’ve had a piano in the drawing room of the main legacy house ever since the family could afford one. Since the rebuild (over 60 sim days of play), it has been tuned twice. This one has been tuned

thrice in just over a week. Madness.

I was outside taking some air, when Lisa approached me. “I have been thinking Marielle,” she said, “that when we get out of this place, we should meet up and take tea sometime. Maybe go to the theatre, or

dress shopping. Perhaps Samantha can come with us, a nice day out in the city, just us ladies.”

As I listened to her, I realised just ‘ow much I wanted to do just that. Spend the day in the city, visiting dressmakers and milliners, going to the theatre in the evening, and then out to a nice restaurant for a

meal.

I smiled broadly at ‘er. “I would like that very much,” I replied, “and your daughter sounds charming.”

“Oh she is, such a good little girl.”

We were still stood chatting when a visitor arrived to look round the facility. He introduced himself to Arias Dr Rauscher, and she seemed stunned to see him.

Ari gave Dr Rauscher a tour of the facility, and he insisted on seeing the treatment of a patient, and watched Lisa as she took a turn in the gyroscopic device..

Lisa told me ‘e muttered something about “hmm, it appears to be sticking.” Made an adjustment, and then got in it himself. She said that the device moved much more fluidly, and the doctor didn’t ‘ave the

same difficulty we ‘ave in keeping ‘is balance.

He stayed for dinner too, but as we were waiting for Ari to serve it, Melody went up to him and started to shout about ‘ow she Is fed up wiv visitors treating her like she is there for their amusement.

Dr Rauscher appeared shocked at her behaviour and he made his excuses and left the kitchen.

Unfortunately that did not ‘elp as Melody followed him into the next room, and, well, from what I heard, things got a bit ugly.

Luckily Ari ‘ad followed Melody and managed to diffuse the situation before Melody tried to instigate a full blown fist fight.

The doctor left soon after and Melody came back into the kitchen humming under her breath. I think that she enjoyed antagonising him.

At least I ‘ave managed to get a bed at a reasonable time tonight. I wonder what the morrow will bring, and ‘ow long I will ‘ave to stay ‘ere.

***

Well that’s another week over with folks. It’s got to the point in the asylum where the actions of the residents have got very repetitive and difficult to add smoothly to a narrative, so this is a shorter part than

the previous two.

By the end of the week I was seeing almost constant worry hands...

...and if it wasn’t worry hands, it was crying. No one has busted out a flour sack baby, or mop lover yet, but I’m starting to think that it’s only a matter of time.

The only non-controllable sim I haven’t seen in aspiration distress is Brittany. Despite the fact that she is still behaving like a bitch, she keeps gaining aspiration points by talking to her fellow inmates.

Speaking of Brittany, I’ve seen quite a few fights between her and Melody this week, and I’m sure they will continue until the challenge is over. I’ve managed to catch eight of them, and so far the scores are

Brittany 6, Melody 2.

Marielle is still the queen of primping and is really not doing well at all. She’ll have a good moment, and then start primping, and then cry, and then primp again before starting to weep. (Hence the fact she

keeps dropping her aitches, then gets a bit better, then worse again).

Still no fires! That’s despite the oven looking like this, and the inmates having to earn cooking points through actually preparing their food, not watching the TV.

Of course having said that, I’ll probably now have several fires a day until the end of the challenge.

Ah the end of the challenge, is it in sight?

Um, kinda.

Again Ari hasn’t been in this much because she has been very busy skilling and making friends. She

started the week at level 6, needing to get all the skill points and friends to get to level 7. She ended it on level 7, but only half a skill point shy of having everything she needs to get to level 9. I was certain she

would come home with a promotion on the Friday before her two days off, but it was not to be.

Will she manage to get to four and a half skill points, two more friends AND the three promotions she

needs to get to level ten before the end of week four? I have no idea, I best go do some playing really hadn’t I?

=>

Erm yeah this fight I thought I was going to loose Melody since she was starving and her picture was a very attractive red colour, but they would not leave each other alone.

***

Thanks everyone for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks also to all of you awesome people who are letting me use your sims for this. You guys rock.

Lastly thanks to the creators of the cc I use. Things wouldn’t be the same without it.